SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Yesterday, we heard about an unusual group of people, dozens of strangers who took DNA tests only to discover late in life that the dads who raised them were not their biological fathers. Instead, they learned they all had the same biological father. He was a pioneering infertility specialist named Charles Charny. So who was Dr. Charny? And why did he secretly father so many children? NPR's Frank Langfitt explains in our second episode of his series called The Secret Family.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Charles Charny was born in 1902 in an area of the Russian Empire that is now part of Western Ukraine. His family fled the pogroms that targeted Jews and settled in Philadelphia. Charny graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1926. He fathered these secret children between the end of World War II and the first Nixon administration.
The Charny Sibs, as they began to refer to themselves, figured out that OBGYNs inseminated their mothers using Charny's semen. The next question, what, if anything, did their parents know about Charny's role? Many of the siblings adored the dads who had raised them and didn't want to cause them pain. Brina is a retired college professor who asked NPR not to use her full name to protect the privacy of family members. Brina has struggled over whether to tell her dad.
BRINA: I kept going back and forth, changing my mind about it. And I decided - you know what? - I'm not going to say anything. This is his life story. He chose to tell his life story in a way that worked for him. My father was in his later years. I didn't want to take that away from him.
LANGFITT: There was a strange clue that at least one mother knew the semen was Charny's. Dena Harris is an OBGYN herself. Her mother was a painter.
DENA HARRIS: Pretty much painted all the time, and she was good.
LANGFITT: It was at a time when women had trouble getting attention in art circles. So Dena's mother began signing her paintings with what seemed like a masculine name.
HARRIS: Charny Harris, which was kind of weird, and we didn't understand what that was about. So when my brothers found out the name of our biologic father, it was like, what? So if you asked me, did my mom know? Yes, of course she knew. Come on. And also, my brothers look like him.
LANGFITT: When David Staskin, a Boston urological surgeon, saw all the half-siblings in his DNA results, he picked up the phone.
DAVID STASKIN: I called my mother. Now, she's, at that time, 90. And I said to her, mom, I said, so what's going on? And my mother's response was interesting because she answered right away. Daddy and I went to a doctor in Philadelphia, and they processed something in Daddy's sperm, and then we had you. Now, she didn't say you must be the doctor's kid, right? I always said, but Mom, the father is the father of 20-some, 30-some people at the time, 60 now. And the interesting thing that she said was, no. We never thought about it. We were just so happy to have you.
LANGFITT: David's mother declined to speak with me. In conversations with parents and relatives, some siblings form theories about the mechanics behind their conception. Another sib, Diane, is an author and entrepreneur in Boston. She said the process probably went something like this.
DIANE: There was a couple. They were having a really hard time getting pregnant. The gynecologist sent them into Philadelphia to a specialist, and, you know, they would do what you would do today - take sperm samples, check things out.
LANGFITT: American medicine was very different back then. There were no sperm banks, patients respected and trusted physicians and knew little about male infertility.
DIANE: It was a source of shame at the time. What they were told was, we are going to take your sperm, and we're going to give it a boost with the sperm of someone else, I think, a doctor. We'll get the sample. We'll shake it up. We'll insert it back into you, and let's see what happens. And before this entire procedure, you should have sex before and after.
LANGFITT: This is a real thing that used to happen.
DIANE: I think these people got pregnant and said, you never know. Maybe it finally worked because we just needed a little boost.
LANGFITT: The Charny Sibs still have questions. Why did Dr. Charny father so many children and over such a long time? No one knows for sure, but Diane laid out the three theories the siblings have come up with.
DIANE: Theory No. 1 was he was just a research geek. He wanted to try doing this and see what happened and what takes and what doesn't take. And, you know, just to try to further the whole field of infertility. Theory No. 2 was he was super compassionate. That he just saw all of these couples, like my parents, who were incredibly desperate to have children and who couldn't and decided that he could help solve the problem. Theory No. 3 was that he thought he had really phenomenal genes and wanted to spread his sperm throughout the world. So it was more of an ego thing than anything else.
LANGFITT: Many of the sibs are doctors. They're especially critical of Charny. Here's David, the urological surgeon.
STASKIN: If you said to me, was this ethical? I'd say no. I'd say by today's standards, it's not ethical. But I think by any standards, it's not ethical 'cause it wasn't a donor, it was the doctor himself.
LANGFITT: Stu Friedman is certain his parents had no idea Charny was the donor. That's because they specifically asked for a donor who wasn't Jewish, so they wouldn't potentially pass on a fatal disease carried almost exclusively by Eastern European Jews. Instead, Stu got the genes of Charny, an Eastern European Jew.
STU FRIEDMAN: They went through this thing with my brother, and they went through a lot of energy to make sure it didn't happen again. So yeah, they would be very, very, very angry.
LANGFITT: Sibling Gil Brodsky is a surgeon. He also has a dim view of Charny. An amateur songwriter, Brodsky put his feelings to music.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GIL BRODSKY: (Singing) Serial inseminator, miracle impersonator, egotistic procreator, medical fraud perpetrator.
LANGFITT: Despite the questions around ethics and Charny's motivations, some siblings' main response is gratitude.
KEN LASKEY: I thank him for his genetic material.
LANGFITT: This is Ken Laskey, a retired nuclear and aerospace engineer.
LASKEY: I think that he saw himself as a scientist and, you know, I was one of the experiments. I mean, if he wasn't doing that - experiments, you know, I wouldn't be here.
LANGFITT: Other doctors have used their own semen to artificially inseminate women without their knowledge. Those cases have often been bitter and litigious. The story of the Charny Sibs is different. After they figured out who their father was, they decided to meet in person.
PFEIFFER: Tune in to the show tomorrow to hear from NPR's Frank Langfitt about how this group of strangers bonded and built something new. On Friday, the final episode of The Secret Family.
(SOUNDBITE OF COMMON SONG, "THEY SAY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
