The new late-term abortion clinic / Pro-life leader Karen Garnett

Dallas, Texas, Nov 8, 2009 / 07:12 pm (CNA).- An abortionist who says he know he is “killing” has opened a late-term abortion clinic in North Texas, prompting local pro-lifers to express their dismay that such a clinic was absent for only 14 months. However, they also affirmed their resolve to peacefully end the “grave evil” in their community. Dr. Curtis Boyd, who opened the first abortion clinic in Texas in 1973, is the only doctor in North Texas who will perform abortions on women up to six months pregnant.

"We see patients from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and across Texas," he said, according to WFAA TV.

"Am I killing?" Boyd said. "Yes, I am. I know that."

Boyd reported that he was ordained a Baptist minister and is now Unitarian. He said he prays often.

"I'll ask that the spirit of this pregnancy be returned to God with love and understanding," he said.

A group called the Catholic Pro-Life Committee gathers outside his office to try to persuade women away from abortion.

"Well, we're certainly disappointed to hear any unborn child will be killed by abortion,” said Karen Garnett of the Catholic Pro-Life Committee. “But, to hear it's a late-term abortion in Dallas, once again, it's particularly devastating."

Boyd opened the Southwestern Women’s Surgery Center last week. By law, he must have a surgery center in order to abort an unborn child more than 16 weeks after conception.

He told WFAA TV that he has been troubled because of the torment he says drives patients to seek his services.

"The hardest ones are the young girls," he said, reporting that girls as young as nine and ten have come to his clinic.

Boyd, a close friend of the murdered Kansas late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller, also received death threats.

"I don't want the fate that befell Dr. Tiller, but I'm not going to be deterred because what I'm doing is important," he told WFAA, saying that he takes numerous security precautions.

In an Oct. 28 statement Karen Garnett expressed the Catholic Pro-Life Committee’s “deep disappointment” that a late-term abortion facility would again be operating in Dallas. She reported the last late-term abortion clinic had closed 14 months previously.

She explained that Boyd’s new clinic is registered as an ambulatory surgical center and “equipped to kill innocent unborn children through 24 weeks gestation.”

“God, have mercy on us,” she prayed.

Garnett reported that there are five total “killing centers” in Dallas.

“We will continue to pray and work, peacefully and legally, for Dallas to be free of these five terrible ‘wounds in our city,’ where the innocent blood of more than 11,000 unborn children is shed each year.”

Professing her group’s commitment to an “abortion-free Dallas,” she explained that the new facility will not provide access for sidewalk counselors to speak with mothers arriving for abortions. Counselors at other clinics have helped save “thousands of lives” over the past 12 years, Garnett reported.

She said the Catholic Pro-Life Committee will work with churches, businesses and residents of the area to try to save the unborn and to offer “help and hope” to their mothers.

“We are calling on people of faith from all over Dallas and the surrounding suburbs to join with us in a renewed, massive prayer and public witness effort against this grave evil in our community,” she added, asking for prayers for Dr. Boyd, his wife, all his clinic staff, and those at other Dallas abortion facilities.

Claiming that the average age of abortionists in America is 72, she added a prayer that younger doctors continue to avoid the abortion industry.

“Deliver us, Lord, from the evil of abortion,” her statement concluded.

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