By Sarah Neely
Des Plaines, IL — Operation Rescue recently uncovered a reported forced abortion that took place at American Women’s Medical Center (AWMC) located in Des Plaines, Illinois.
“Illinois has become what we call an ‘abortion devastation,’” says Sarah Neely, Chief Operating Officer at Operation Rescue. “Sadly, a report of a forced abortion is not only completely believable, it’s inevitable in the kind of dangerous climate that abortion radicals have created across Illinois.”
‘Abortion Devastation’
In 2025, alone, Operation Rescue has already documented 16 women injured by eight abortion clinics in the state. No clinics appear to have been disciplined.
Earlier in the year, an anonymous plaintiff also filed a bone-chilling lawsuit after Illinois abortionist Keith Reisinger-Kindle completely botched a late-term abortion procedure, tearing a quarter-sized hole in the plaintiff’s uterus and leaving half of the child’s dead body in her abdomen. Despite exhibiting complete incompetence and nearly killing a patient, so far Reisinger-Kindle has only been given a $5,000 fine by the state and required to complete some continuing education hours. He is still fully licensed.
Just last month, Operation Rescue reported on yet another botched abortion — this time at a Planned Parenthood in Aurora that callously requested “no lights, no sirens” while a woman bled uncontrollably inside their clinic. Since 2011, Operation Rescue has investigated more than a dozen injuries at this abysmal clinic, including a critical uterine perforation just three years ago. It remains open.
“Now a woman has reported a forced abortion,” says Neely. “An unimaginable assault by a licensed medical professional. Will pro-abortion Illinois officials even investigate?”
Forced Onto an Operating Table
A police report dated in June 2025 details the harrowing experience of a woman who changed her mind about going through with her abortion after arriving at AWMC. However, when she tried to leave, the woman reports she was held down by a male doctor and female nurse until they could inject some sort of sedation into her left arm. Now drugged, the “duo” more easily got her onto an operating table where her child was forcibly aborted.
According to the report, this assault took place in 2021. However, the woman told police that the gap in reporting was due to a lack of support, stating, “Nobody around me supported me.”
She also reported seeking legal assistance only to be “turned…away” and told the statute of limitations had expired on some of the possible charges.
Unfortunately, the woman was unable to remember the exact day she went to AWMC in 2021 or the name of the abortionist — though she was able to give a physical description (redacted from the report). Despite the facts she could remember, nothing in the report indicates the police followed up at AWMC or made any attempts to verify the woman’s story. It was classified as “a suspicious incident.”
“This is how women who experience abuse within the abortion industry are all too often treated,” says Neely. “While abortion radicals protect incompetent abortionists like Keith Reisinger-Kindle, or violent abortionists like Adam Levy, a convicted child abuser in Nevada, or Jacob Kalo, a sexual predator in Michigan, women like this one pay the price — and no one on the side of abortion is willing to help them. Women injured, abused, or killed by the abortion industry are invisible to those who support it.”
Illinois Officials Abandoning Women
Women in Illinois have been left especially vulnerable. Besides the state no longer requiring abortion clinics to be licensed or regulated — resulting in rising numbers of women injured by abortion — the governor just signed bills expanding legal protections for abortionists — not patients — as well as protections for distributors of abortion drugs — not the women who may ingest them.
At the signing of the bills, Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton said, “Since Roe fell, we’ve worked hard to ensure that Illinois is a safe haven for reproductive freedom….”
Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, comments, “Illinois has certainly become a safe haven, but not for any kind of freedom. It’s a safe haven for abortionists willing to assault women and forcibly abort their children. It’s a safe haven for the eight abortion clinics that have already injured 16 women in 2025 with absolutely no consequences. Where’s the Illinois law meant to protect women from that? For this woman who was attacked and drugged — where’s the call for her reproductive freedom?”
Neely adds, “Though the police and even her own friends and family seemed unwilling to assist this woman, Operation Rescue would be more than willing to put her in contact with a good attorney, as well as assist her in filing effective complaints to the appropriate offices. Many other pro-life organizations would do the same. Unlike abortion radicals who only pretend to care about empowering women, pro-life advocates actually do care. There is real help for this woman if she is ever able to contact us.”
This report may be republished with inclusion of the following acknowledgement: “This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America. The author, Sarah Neely, is Chief Operating Officer for Operation Rescue.”
