16 | JANUARY 14 • 2021 

M

ore people in the area 
are thinking about 
their DNA heritage 
and coming forward with sto-
ries of their own fertility fraud 
experiences after the Detroit 
Jewish News reported last month 
that Dr. Philip Peven, a well-re-
spected OB-GYN in the Detroit 
Jewish community, had secretly 
used his own sperm to artifi-
cially inseminate some patients 
(Dec. 24 cover story).
The JN story, however, 
alarmed some readers who — 
although not having taken a 
DNA test or having any reason 
to suspect artificial insemination 
in their conception — are now 
curious about circumstances of 
their births. 
Plymouth resident Michele 
Santillan was delivered by Dr. 
Peven in 1971. After reading 
reports about his practices from 
the Jewish News and other news 
outlets, she began to wonder 
whether he may be her biolog-
ical father. Her parents have 
passed away, and she can’t ask 

them directly, so she got a DNA 
testing kit to find out about her 
true parentage. 
“It just opened up a lot of 
questions for me, I guess, more 
than anything else,
” she said. She 
hasn’t yet received her results.
Over the course of his 
decades-long career, Dr. Peven 
delivered around 9,000 babies, 
some conceived via artificial 
insemination. It is unknown 
how many times Peven used his 
own sperm to artificially insem-
inate a patient, and to date he 
hasn’t taken a DNA test to help 
verify the number, according to 
his son Roger.
Shortly before the publication 
of the JN story, the University 
of Michigan Medical School 
quietly removed an online arti-
cle from its alumni magazine, 
originally published in 2017, 
that profiled Dr. Peven’s prolif-
ic fertility career. At 104, he is 
currently the oldest living alum 
of the medical school. A U-M 
Medicine spokesperson declined 
comment. 

OTHER DOCTORS
Indeed, Dr. Peven may not have 
been the only local OB-GYN to 
artificially inseminate patients 
using his own sperm without 
patients’ knowledge.
A member of the Detroit 
Jewish community published 
an anonymous essay in the JN
on March 7, 2019, detailing the 
experience of finding out they 
were donor-conceived by their 
mother’s doctor.
The writer prefers to remain 
anonymous to protect their 
privacy.
Though the person declined 
to share the name of the doctor, 
the writer confirmed it was not 
Dr. Peven and that their moth-
er’s doctor worked at Women’s 
Hospital and Sinai Hospital.
“In the end, I am convinced 
that neither of my parents knew 
the truth about my biological 
father, who handled the pro-
cedure in an unethical and 
short-sighted manner, and on 
a still-unknown number of 
patients,
” the writer’s 2019 essay 
reads.
The writer spoke to the JN
again via an intermediary after 
the news of Dr. Peven’s actions 
broke.
“I now realize that it was a dif-
ferent time, a time when doctors 
were not questioned, but I still 
consider the doctor’s behavior 
unprincipled, unethical and pos-
sibly dangerous,
” the person said.
In the 1950s, when the writer 
was born, most Jewish people 
in the Detroit area lived in the 
same neighborhoods and went 
to the same hospitals to give 
birth.
“The possibility was certain-
ly there that half-siblings could 
meet, marry and have chil-
dren,” the person said. “I do 
realize the doctor was trying to 
be helpful in enabling couples 
to have a child, but he should 
have told the mother he was 
using his own sperm. I doubt 
most women would have said 

yes to that scenario.”

DOCTORS’ LIES
Not every male fertility doctor in 
the mid-20th century was using 
his own sample to artificially 
inseminate patients, but practi-
tioners were operating under a 
different set of social norms than 
today’s doctors, said Indiana 
University law professor Jody 
Madeira.
Still, Madeira said, “at face, no 
matter what you’re practicing, 
you don’t lie to your patients.
”
When Lynne Weiner Spencer’s 
parents went to Dr. Sylvester 
Trythall’s Detroit fertility clinic 
for help conceiving, he told them 
he would use a medical student’s 
sperm to artificially inseminate 
Spencer’s mother, Spencer said. 
Spencer later found out that the 
doctor had lied, instead using 
the sperm of another patient’s 
husband who was a regular 
donor at his clinic. 
At the time, Dr. Trythall, who 
passed away in 1970, had told 
Spencer’s mother he’
d mixed 
Spencer’s dad’s semen with that 
of a donor from the medical 
school, a common practice at 
the time, her mom told her.
Spencer’s mother told her 

New stories surface of
fertility doctors’ misconduct
in Metro Detroit.

MAYA GOLDMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

IN 
THE
JEWS D

New stories surface of

 Donor 
Deception

ABOVE: Michele Santillan shows her 

birth certificate with Dr. Peven’s name 

on it, and the AncestryDNA kit her 

husband recently bought her. TOP 

LEFT: Jen Urbancyzk, Steve Heemsoth 

and Nicole Spencer look at photos of 

the Heemsoths at a “family reunion.”

COURTESY MICHELE SANTILLAN. 

COURTESY OF LYNNE SPENCER

