A woman is suing an Illinois doctor after he allegedly botched her late-term abortion, landing her in the emergency room with baby parts left inside her, a potentially deadly complication.
Dr. Keith Reisinger-Kindle at Equity Clinic in Champaign, Illinois, performed the abortion on her 22-week unborn baby on April 2, 2023, the anonymous woman, who goes by “Jane Doe,” said in her lawsuit, filed on Friday.
The lawsuit alleges Kindle botched the “dilation and evacuation” procedure, perforating the woman’s uterus and leaving a significant part of the baby’s body inside her.
Kindle also allegedly did not administer any drugs to stop the baby’s heart, meaning he potentially dismembered the baby alive.
The woman, a mother of four living children, endured hours of pain before ending up in the emergency room, where a surgical team removed the rest of her baby and repaired her uterus, according to her lawsuit. She was left with significant physical damage and emotional distress, her suit claims.
Just three months earlier, Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, had signed a sweeping abortion and transgender bill that signaled the state’s support for Illinois abortionists, shielding them from prosecution in other states.
Illinois also has looser restrictions on abortion clinics than other states — it does not require abortionists to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, and it does not require clinics to meet ambulatory surgical center standards.
Kindle recorded that the woman’s uterus had been emptied and that he had inspected the “products of conception” and determined they were “complete,” that is, all parts of the unborn baby had been removed, the lawsuit notes.
The next day, the woman experienced heavy cramping and called the abortion clinic several times over many hours, at one point telling them “her bottom has a lot of pressure and it is hard to breathe.”
The abortion clinic told her to take ibuprofen. When that did not relieve her cramping, Kindle told her to take a laxative, the suit says.
Two days after the abortion, the woman told the clinic she had taken a laxative, but her cramping had increased. The abortion clinic told her to take an enema and go to the emergency room, the suit says.
She went to the emergency room, where a surgical team found and removed “half of a deceased pre-born human being” in her pelvis, according to medical records cited in the suit. They removed pieces of the fetal skull, which had adhered to her intestine, and they repaired her perforated uterus.
Kindle “deviated from a reasonable standard of care” and “it should have been obvious” that fetal parts were left inside, said a board-certified OBGYN with 35 years of experience including performing hundreds of abortions, whose letter analyzing the medical records was included in the lawsuit.
The emergency room medical team found “evidence of severe and intentional trauma” and signs of infection in her abdomen, according to the operative notes from the emergency room surgery.
The unborn baby’s body was found mutilated, according to the operative notes.
“Stumps of both femurs extended from the soft tissue of the torso,” and the baby’s arms were missing from the elbow down, the notes state.
“The skull was crushed and no brain was present. The face was non-recognizable,” the notes say.
The general surgeon who assisted in the emergency room surgery called Kindle, but the abortionist refused to answer any questions, the lawsuit states.
The woman herself also called Kindle again and asked whether her unborn child had been a boy or a girl. Kindle allegedly told her he would “look again” even though he knew the fetal remains had already been discarded and determining the sex would be impossible, which the lawsuit says was “outrageous, exceeded all bounds of human decency, and is intolerable in a civilized society.”
The woman is demanding a trial by jury and monetary damages of $50,000 each for five counts of medical negligence and emotional distress.
