An Indiana mother has reached a settlement with an Illinois abortionist accused of puncturing her uterus and leaving part of her unborn baby’s remains inside her body during an abortion performed when she was around 22 weeks pregnant.
The woman, identified in court filings as “Jane Doe” and referred to in some more recent reporting as Hardy, a 32-year-old mother of four, filed the lawsuit against Champaign-based Dr. Keith Reisinger-Kindle and his Equity Clinic in March 2025, alleging that she suffered a botched second-trimester abortion at Reisinger-Kindle’s hands in April 2023. She sought damages in excess of $50,000. Doe and Reisinger-Kindle reached a settlement on July 8, 2026, according to the News-Gazette; court records show an agreed motion to dismiss the case was filed July 24 and approved Aug. 3.
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation fined Reisinger-Kindle $5,000 in a disciplinary action filed on May 16, 2025, and reported that summer. The abortionist was also required to complete 20 hours of continuing medical education, with the reason for the reprimand listed as “failing to properly evaluate a patient before a procedure which resulted in hospitalization due to complications.”
The Christian Post reached out to the Reisinger-Kindle and Equity Clinic for a statement, but a facility representative declined to comment.
Reisinger-Kindle previously worked at the Women’s Med Center in Dayton, Ohio, alongside Dr. Martin Haskell, the abortionist who developed the dilation and extraction, or “partial-birth,” abortion procedure, according to Live Action News. He later founded the Equity Clinic in 2022, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and remains its medical director.
Doe traveled to Illinois for an abortion following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, court documents show. Doe had been pregnant five times before the abortion, giving birth four times and suffering one miscarriage.
The woman went to the Equity Clinic on April 1, 2023, and then returned the following day for the abortion. Reisinger-Kindle’s notes cited in the case claimed that the woman’s abortion was complete, writing that the “[p]roducts of conception were visually inspected and confirmed to be complete.”
According to an expert witness in the case, the woman called the clinic the day after the abortion and complained that she was suffering from heavy cramping. The plaintiff was instructed to take pain medications and was assured that this was normal.
“A follow-up call was made about five hours later…[Doe] noted that the ibuprofen was helping some but ‘her bottom has a lot of pressure and it is hard to breathe,’” the document states. “The call was transferred to Dr. Kindle but there are no additional notes documenting his discussion with the patient, if any.”
When Doe called again on April 4, 2023, she said that she had not experienced a bowel movement despite taking two doses of a laxative the night before. The woman’s abdominal cramping had reportedly increased due to the laxatives, and she was told to take an enema or visit urgent care or the emergency room.
After arriving at the emergency room at Community Hospital in Indianapolis on the same day, doctors removed the remains of Doe’s unborn child and worked to repair her uterus.
“The patient was found to have half of a deceased pre-born human being in the right pelvis of the patient with evidence of severe and intentional trauma,” the operative note states. “The baby’s body was transected at the pelvis with no legs or feet present.”
“Stumps of both femurs extended from the soft tissue of the torso. The upper extremities were missing from elbow distally on both sides. The skull was crushed and no brain was present. The face was nonrecognizable. … There were small bony fragments in the mother’s pelvis,” the document continues.
The operative note also described a hole “in the posterolateral inferior aspect of the right uterus,” stating that it was “approximately the size of a quarter to half dollar.”
“There was baby skull that was adherent to the patient’s ileum,” the note reads.
On April 5, 2023, Reisinger-Kindle allegedly refused to answer questions or provide information to one of the surgeons treating Doe at the Indianapolis hospital, citing a lack of patient permission, according to the lawsuit. He reportedly did not mention that conversation, however, when he later spoke with Doe directly that same day.
This lawsuit isn’t the first time Reisinger-Kindle has been the subject of a medical malpractice complaint. He was also named among several doctors named in a 2021 lawsuit filed in Massachusetts over “severe and permanent personal injuries” sustained by plaintiff Elvira Torres as a result of “negligent care and treatment” she received at the Massachusetts hospital where Reisinger-Kindle worked at the time.
The 2021 lawsuit claimed that Reisinger-Kindle’s failure to treat Torres “within the accepted standard of care” resulted in the woman having to labor for over 30 hours before delivering her baby via cesarean section. The complaint insisted that the symptoms experienced by the patient that caused her to report to the hospital in the first place should have been enough to determine that she needed to undergo an emergency cesarean section 30 hours earlier.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
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