Imagine finding out your biological father was your mother’s fertility doctor and that you unknowingly dated your half-brother in high school. This is an unfortunate reality for Victoria Hill, who lives in Wethersfield, but grew up in Wallingford.
“I moved to Wallingford in middle school, and we were best friends for years, and then ultimately decided to date and then we decided to go our separate ways because of college,” said Hill, referring to her high-school boyfriend who she found out years later was her half-brother. “We never ended up marrying and having children, but he is someone who, even to this day, I very much would have considered that, had life taken us in that direction.”
Hill made the shocking discovery in 2020. In search of more information regarding her health history, she took a DNA test through 23andMe. Hill said her results revealed she had several half-siblings and their father was Dr. Burton Caldwell.
Hill spoke with her mother who said Caldwell was her fertility doctor for seven years. During that time, her mother had five pregnancies that resulted in two children. The brother Hill grew up with is not Caldwell’s child, but she is.
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Hill has 23 half-siblings that she is aware of so far. Janine Pierson is one of them. Pierson grew up in East Haven, but now lives in Canton. She took a DNA test in 2022. She later found out one of the boys she went to a summer camp with was her half-brother.
Both Pierson and Hill said they confronted Caldwell separately and Pierson even snapped a picture.
“He completely admitted it. He had no remorse whatsoever. Asked me very pointed questions about my life and my achievements and how many grandchildren he had, but offered no kind of apology whatsoever. He said he really didn’t think about how many of us there would be or what that impact would be like,” Pierson said.
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Pierson and her mother filed a lawsuit against Caldwell last year. NBC Connecticut has reached out to Caldwell's attorney for comment. We have not heard back.
Hill and Pierson gathered at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford on Monday, holding signs out front and testifying to legislators. They are pushing for legislation federally and in Connecticut that would prohibit a physician from knowingly using his own sperm without a patient’s consent.
“In my testimony today, I’m asking for them to expand on the word physician, because there's other cases where it's not just physicians, it's anybody that works in a clinic that has access. There was a case just last year that hasn't come out yet where it was a lab tech,” Hill said. “Any sort of fraud where someone knowingly and intentionally is messing with like the gametes. And again, that's another correction, not just sperm, but gametes, eggs, embryos, and sperm because we have cases of that as well.”
Hill said there are five doctors, to her knowledge, who have engaged in this behavior in Connecticut. She was supported by other advocates on Monday, who said legislation is crucial now more than ever, when more and more people are turning to fertility treatments to have families.
There are also larger "pods" of people across the country, according to Hill, with 100 or more half-siblings.
“More and more people are turning to the fertility industry. We are having an uptick and rise on how many people are using donor conception, and the fact that we don’t have this basic protection for recipient parents and donor conceived people is absolutely terrifying,” said Laura High, a donor conceived advocate. “The fact that we have an industry that profits so heavily off of creating humans and it is so unregulated is not good.”
Despite speculation or concerns that more regulations on fertility could hurt people seeking to grow their families, these siblings endorse the legislation.
“I myself am part of the LGBTQ community and I’m pregnant. And I feel that that is absolutely the furthest thing from what we want. We want there to be added protections for people going in so that they feel safe about the decision they’re making, so they know exactly what’s happening to their body,” Pierson said.
