US woman takes DNA test, discovers fertility doctor is her father

An American woman is suing the fertility doctor her parents turned to for help to conceive after a DNA test revealed he allegedly used his own sperm to impregnate her mother.

Kelli Rowlette, now 36 and living in Washington DC, discovered Dr Gerald E. Mortimer was her biological father through a popular genealogy website, The Daily Beast  reports.

She had no idea her now divorced parents, Sally Ashby and Howard Fowler, had fertility issues. They had attended Dr Mortimer's former Idaho Falls clinic for IUI (artificial insemination) during the early 1980s.

Rowlette has now filed a lawsuit against the doctor, claiming the fertility specialist knowingly swapped Fowler's semen sample for his own before performing IUI on Ashby over a period of three months.

Dr Mortimer allegedly told the couple he had used a mixture of Fowler's sperm and a semen donation from their chosen college student donor to help her fall pregnant.

The doctor delivered the couple's child nine months later, signing her birth certificate and allegedly keeping in contact with the family (who went on to have a son naturally) under the guise of providing further fertility advice. He then "cried" when the family told him they were moving states.

The estranged couple are "devastated" by their daughter's discovery, the lawsuit states.

Rowlette alleges medical negligence, battery and fraud. Dr Mortimer has not commented publicly on the case.