Abortion doctor arrested for threatening pro-lifers with a gun

Shortly after the one year anniversary of a pro-choice man gunning down and murdering a pro-life abortion protester and only weeks after a patient’s father at the abortion clinic of Curtis Boyd in New Mexico threatened pro-lifers with a gun and was arrested, another act of violence with a gun has been committed against pro-life abortion protesters. A TN doctor has been charged with pointing gun at protestors outside abortion clinic
5:42 PM, Oct 3, 2010

CHARLESTON, SC — A Blountville, Tennessee doctor has been charged with pointing a gun at protesters outside an abortion clinic in Charleston, South Carolina.

Local police say 62-year old Gary Boyle was released on a $25,000 bail Saturday, after they say he pointed a handgun at three abortion protesters in the clinic’s parking lot.

It was not clear whether or not Boyle was actually performing abortions at the Charleston clinic, but the investigation is ongoing.

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From the Post and Courier

Police: Abortion doctor pulls gun
3 protesters approached him at West Ashley clinic

BY ALLYSON BIRD
The Post and Courier
Sunday, October 3, 2010

For the past 11 days, anti-abortion demonstrators have gathered at the Charleston Women’s Medical Center in West Ashley as part of the annual “40 Days for Life” movement against abortion, each of them signing a “statement of peace” before participating.

Police say the protest met a threat Saturday morning when an out-of-state abortion doctor flashed a gun at them.

Police arrested Gary Boyle, 62, a Blountville, Tenn., physician, on charges of pointing a firearm.

Boyle drove into the parking lot of the clinic on Ashley River Road near Fuseler Road at around 8:30 a.m. When three protesters, including a 17-year-old boy, approached him, Boyle brandished a black handgun loaded with 15 rounds, according to a police report.

Boyle then stepped out of his SUV and walked into the clinic without further incident, the report says. One of the three protesters, 50-year-old John Karafa, called 911.

“We were like, ‘Well, that was a gun,’ ” Karafa said. “You can’t do that.”

Boyle appeared by video conference at a bond hearing Saturday afternoon dressed in a light yellow button-down shirt. Charleston County Magistrate Priscilla Baldwin set his bail at $25,000, which he posted later Saturday.

Whether Boyle performed abortions locally is not known. He and another physician operate the Bristol Regional Women’s Center near his Tennessee home.

A woman who came to the courtroom on Boyle’s behalf declined to speak during the proceedings and ignored requests for comment after the hearing.

More than a half-dozen anti- abortion demonstrators also attended

The incident wasn’t the doctor’s first legal snag.

He and his partner operated their clinic without a required certificate of need from the Tennessee Health Department for several years in the 1990s, and the health department tried to shut them down, according to court filings.

The dispute dragged on for years until 2002, when an appeals judge ruled that the state statute requiring the certificate had violated a woman’s right to privacy.