BISMARCK — The North Dakota Senate on Tuesday approved a bill to criminalize the implanting of reproductive material into unknowing patients.
House Bill 1140 by Rep. Bernie Satrom, R-Jamestown, passed unanimously with no discussion. The state House of Representatives last month also passed the bill unanimously. The bill now goes to Gov. Doug Burgum.
Doctors would face a felony charge for "sexual reproductive imposition," under the bill.
Satrom has said his inspiration for the bill came after watching a film on Netflix.
"Our Father" is the story of an Indiana fertility doctor who used his own sperm to impregnate unknowing patients, fathering likely dozens of children in the 1970s.
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He ultimately was given a one-year suspended sentence in 2017 and paid a $500 fine after pleading guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice, according to The Associated Press. Indiana had no law specifically forbidding the doctor's conduct.
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