Summer McKesson calls herself a victim – and a product – of fertility fraud. Now the Fayetteville native says she’s pressing lawmakers in North Carolina to ban the harmful practice.
McKesson’s life changed forever three years ago. While battling a pair of serious genetic conditions, she made a shocking discovery: her biological father was Duke Fertility Clinic’s Dr. Charles Peete.
Peete apparently used his own sperm when McKesson’s mother sought fertility treatments at Duke, without her knowledge or consent. DNA testing revealed she had more than a dozen half-siblings scattered around the country.
Under current North Carolina law, that’s perfectly legal.
McKesson wants to change that.
Monday, she sent a letter to top-ranking members of the state House and Senate, asking them to ban fertility fraud and give victims the chance to sue.
“Clearly, there are doctors that are taking advantage of this and have taken advantage of it,” said McKesson. “So let’s just put that protection in place so there’s not even a question of where the line should be drawn here.”
Currently, just 14 states have fertility fraud legislation on the books.
McKesson is working with a pair of experts in her quest to change North Carolina’s laws, including Indiana University law professor Jody Modeira.
“I think without these pieces of legislation, there’s a lot of lawyers who would never take the chance on a civil lawsuit. Without this legislation, there’s doctors who think that this conduct is okay,” said Modeira.
Modeira points to Illinois as the gold standard for fertility fraud legislation.
“They have several provisions which I think make it a model law for the rest of the United States, like retroactivity,” said Modeira. “That law expressly states it applies to situations decades ago.”
McKesson and Modeira are now searching for a sponsor for their bill, and say they have received some interest.
“Right now, everything is kind of falling in the favor of the doctors who are the criminals in these instances, and that should not be the case,” said McKesson.
McKesson’s biological father, Dr. Charles Peete, died in 2013.
WRAL previously reached out to Duke Health about Peete’s conduct. In a statement, a spokesperson wrote in part, “We have been made aware of unacceptable actions by an individual that occurred in our program in the early days of fertility care during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The unacceptable actions could not happen today at Duke Health and should never have happened.”
