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person1960s–1992

Cecil Jacobson

Disciplines:
ethics

Summary

Cecil Jacobson was an American fertility doctor convicted in 1992 of fraud and perjury for secretly using his own sperm to inseminate patients without their knowledge.

Core Contribution

The Jacobson case became a landmark in medical ethics and reproductive law, prompting reforms in sperm donor anonymity and disclosure requirements; it illustrated how commodifying reproductive medicine without ethical safeguards enables exploitation.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Secret self-insemination (used his own sperm for at least 75 patients who believed they were receiving anonymous donor sperm)
  • Fathered 75+ children (believed to be the biological father of more children than any other person in U.S. history
  • Fraud conviction (convicted on 52 counts of fraud and perjury; sentenced to five years in prison)
  • Reproductive ethics case study (invoked in the lecture to illustrate the limits of market exchange in reproductive medicine)

Historical Influences

No recorded historical influences.

Intellectual Lineage

American reproductive medicineMedical ethics law

Contemporaries & Peers

William Stern Mary Beth Whitehead Ellen Goodman

Minds Influenced

No recorded minds influenced.

Intellectual Posterity

Sperm donor disclosure reformFertility clinic oversight regulations

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