Fact Check

Daughter Fertilizes Own Eggs with Sperm of Deceased Father

Reports of a Danish woman allowed to fertilize her own eggs with the frozen sperm of her deceased father are fake news.

Published Oct. 16, 2016

Claim:
A Danish woman fertilized her own eggs with the frozen sperm of her deceased father.

On 8 October 2016, the World News Daily Report web site published an article reporting that a Danish woman had fertilized her own eggs with the frozen sperm of her deceased father, who whom she had previously engaged in an incestuous relationship:

Danish courts have permitted a woman to fertilize her own eggs with the frozen sperm of her deceased father, a controversial decision which could set a precedent in European Union laws.

Grunta Goebbels, a 34-year-old Danish woman, had proceeded last July to have her ovum fertilized with the frozen sperm of her deceased father, 73-year-old Helmut Goebbels, with whom she had a hidden incestuous relationship dating back to 2006.

This story was completely false. World News Daily Report (WNDR) is a fake news site that publishes clickbait hoaxes using unrelated images to spin wild and salacious stories. The site's disclaimer notes that WNDR's content is fictional:

WNDR assumes however all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website — even those based on real people — are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle.

The image of "Grunta Goebbels" that accompanied the fake WNDR article is actually a photograph of Bethani Webb, an Alberta woman who gave birth to quadruplets via caesarean section in May 2016.

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.