Woman sues abortionist for leaving remnants of unborn child inside her after abortion

CNA Staff, Mar 24, 2025 / 17:15 pm (CNA).

Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions of an abortion procedure.

A woman is suing an abortionist for allegedly leaving more than half of her unborn child inside her after an abortion.

The 32-year-old woman, identified as “Jane Doe,” was about five months pregnant with her fifth child when she traveled from Indianapolis to an abortion facility in Champaign, Illinois. 

Days later, she needed emergency care and surgery to remove remnants of her 22-week-old child from her body. 

Now, Doe is suing the abortionist for medical negligence.

Doe and her lawyers filed the lawsuit against Dr. Keith Reisinger-Kindle and his Equity Clinic last week in the Circuit Court of Champaign County. 

On April 1 and 2, 2023, Doe visited the Equity Clinic for a late-term abortion. The next day, she called the clinic to report heavy cramping. 

When Doe first reported something had gone wrong, the clinic told her to take Tylenol and laxatives, the lawsuit alleges. 

But by April 4, the clinic recommended she have an enema or go to the emergency room. That day, Doe checked into the Community Hospital South Emergency Room in Indianapolis. 

When Doe went to the emergency room soon after her abortion procedure, the days-old remains of the unborn child had to be surgically removed from her body, according to the suit. 

Reisinger-Kindle, the suit alleges, had perforated her uterus during the procedure, leaving a hole the size of a quarter. 

The emergency room surgeon found half of the remains of Doe’s unborn child in her right pelvis as well as pieces of the child’s skull adhered to her intestines, according to the suit. 

The lawsuit claims that on April 5, the emergency room general surgeon called Reisinger-Kindle, who refused to provide information about the abortion. 

The lawsuit alleges that Reisinger-Kindle did not adequately examine Doe after discharging her from the clinic. In a medical report included in the files, an obstetrician-gynecologist consulted on the matter said the remnants should have been obvious had the doctor performed an “adequate exam.” 

The lawsuit states that Doe “will continue to experience irreversible suffering and emotional damages” as a result of the events. 

Reisinger-Kindle founded the Equity Clinic in response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, according to a profile about the clinic published by the Chicago Tribune. 

According to the profile, Reisinger-Kindle has volunteered in abortion clinics as a medical assistant since he was 18.

“The only reason I went to medical school was to be an abortion provider,” he told the Tribune.

A large percentage of the clinic’s patients are out-of-state women, as abortion is legally considered a “fundamental right” in Illinois under the 2019 Reproductive Health Act.

The Equity Clinic provides surgical and chemical abortions as well as late-term dilation and evacuation abortions on unborn children in some cases up to 26 weeks old.

At 22 weeks, Doe’s baby was nearing the age of viability — the age when an unborn child can survive outside of the womb, usually determined to be about 24-26 weeks. In Illinois, abortions are allowed up until fetal viability.

In some cases, prematurely-born babies have survived as early as 21 to 22 weeks.

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/262923/woman-sues-abortionist-for-leaving-remnants-of-unborn-child-inside-her-after-late-term-abortion