A woman filed a lawsuit Friday against an Illinois abortion clinic after enduring severe and dangerous complications from an allegedly botched late-term abortion that her lawyers claim left half of the deceased baby in her womb.
The woman, referred to as Jane Doe in the legal complaint, is suing Dr. Keith Reisinger-Kindle and Equity Clinic after suffering severe complications from a 22-week abortion performed at the clinic, the lawsuit alleges. The state of Illinois, where the clinic is located, prides itself on being “an island for reproductive justice” and has drastically expanded abortion access while offering limited safety regulations.
Richard Craig, an attorney for the plaintiff, confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation that if left untreated, the complications Doe suffered from the abortion could have been life-threatening.
During the abortion, which occurred on April 2, 2023, no medication was administered to end the life of the unborn baby before the suction procedure began, the lawsuit stated.
“Someone who’s performing this has an option of dismembering this baby part by part, while it is alive, or administering to digoxin, which would stop the fetal heart and then the baby’s demise would occur before the dismemberment,” Craig told the DCNF. “There was no administration of pain relief or anything like that. And a child at age 22 [weeks of pregnancy], it’s just a scientific fact, those children feel pain.”
The following day, Doe called the clinic twice to report heavy cramping and pressure that made it “hard to breathe,” for which she was advised to take over-the-counter painkillers and laxatives, according to the lawsuit. The patient contacted the clinic again the next day, April 4, with the same symptoms and was later admitted to a hospital in Indiana.
The hospital discovered the woman had “half of a deceased pre-born human being” remaining in her uterus as well as “pieces of the fetal skull that were adherent to the patient’s intestine,” which required surgery to remove, the lawsuit said. The patient’s uterus was also perforated.
Reisinger-Kindle allegedly refused to answer questions or provide information regarding the original abortion to hospital staff when contacted on April 5, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit accuses Reisinger-Kindle and the Equity Clinic of medical negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
The patient also accused Reisinger-Kindle of intentional infliction of emotional distress due to a phone call the two shared on April 5 during which Doe asked if her baby was a boy or girl, and the doctor responded by saying he would “check again” despite knowing the fetal remains were already discarded, the suit alleges, saying Reisinger-Kindle’s response was “outrageous, exceeded all bounds of human decency, and is intolerable in a civilized society.”
“She does regret it, and I think that that regret set in the moment she wanted to learn whether she would have had a boy or a girl,” Craig informed the DCNF.
An expert testimony provided for the lawsuit by a board-certified obstetrician gynecologist with experience performing late-term abortions added that due to Reisinger-Kindle’s alleged errors, the patient may suffer complications with any future pregnancy and delivery.
“It has been terrible emotionally for [the patient], and I think that part of that emotional injury starts from the way that [Reisinger-Kindle] treated her even after he learned that he had performed so poorly,” Craig told the DCNF. “It’s unlikely that she’ll ever be able to deliver, except for by cesarean section, if she’s ever even able to deliver at all. That part of her life may be over. And there’s that emotional injury too, but I think that the callous nature in which he treated her afterwards — he never had her back ever, and she knows that now and and that hurts.”
Equity Clinic’s website claims that the clinic offers late-term abortions up to 24-weeks of pregnancy and same-day appointments; it also hosts a swath of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training in “anti-bias and anti-oppression/anti-racism” for staff.
“‘Late term abortion’ is not a medical term but a commonly used political term to shame people who terminate pregnancies in the 2nd and 3rd trimester,” the clinic’s website reads. “At Equity Clinic, we understand that there can be a lot of judgment put on our patients, and because of this we prefer to avoid using language like ‘late term abortion’ and use the specific trimester the pregnancy is in (ie. first, second, or third), or the name of the specific procedure (like ‘Dilation and Evacuation’) when referring to abortion procedures.”
Abortion in Illinois is legal up until fetal viability, around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Democrat Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed an abortion shield law in 2023 protecting medical professionals from legal trouble for providing abortions and expanding the ability to perform the procedure to advanced practice registered nurses and physicians assistants.
“Here in Illinois, we hold certain ideals: abortion is health care. A medical decision should be made between a patient and their doctor — no one else,” Pritzker said in the announcement. “Last summer, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, I made a promise that Illinois would remain a beacon of hope and an island for reproductive justice for all who seek it. This bill fulfills that promise.”
Illinois also has few regulations around abortion, with no specific laws governing the standards of clinics or minimum distance they can be away from a hospital in case of complications, according to KFF.
“It is a very unregulated area of medicine, and it’s the lack of regulation that would allow for something like this to occur,” Craig said. “There’s very little in the way of oversight in this field, and I think that it’s a field that likes it that way.”
Reisinger-Kindle and Equity Clinic did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
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