Activists Picket Gateway Women’s Care, A Fake Abortion Clinic, in Durham

On Jan. 23, around 30 protestors gathered on the sidewalk in front of Gateway Women’s Care on Capitol Street in northern Durham. The event was organized by Triangle Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as part of its Abort Fake Clinics campaign.

Gateway bills itself as a provider of “free, confidential pregnancy and sexual health services,” but it is a type of anti-abortion religious organization often called a crisis pregnancy center, or CPC. The Durham location is not a licensed medical facility, according to a registry maintained by the state’s Division of Health Service Regulation [1]. CPCs frequently locate near reproductive healthcare clinics. For example, Gateway in Durham is across the street from a Duke Health OBGYN. The anti-abortion center offers procedures such as an “abortion pill reversal”, which the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has called “unproven and unethical” [2].

The Gateway location in Durham rents its building, and the Abort Fake Clinics campaign will request that the landlord cancel the lease. The same tactic successfully closed a Gateway in Raleigh in March 2025. The landlord did not renew the lease of the CPC after a two-year effort by the Abort Fake Clinics campaign, formerly called the Socialist Feminist Working Group [3].

Wendy Bonano is the executive director of Gateway Women's Health. In a 2023 interview, she stated that her organization creates a “process to slow down their rush to the abortion clinic” [4]. To that end, anti-abortion centers often “delay, reschedule and even lie to women until it’s too late into the pregnancy for them to get an abortion”, according to Cardinal and Pine [5]. The GOP-controlled state legislature subsidized CPCs with more than $12 million in 2023, with the amount decreasing slightly since then.

Image credit: The Assembly

The Jan. 23 protest involved participants chatting on the sidewalk, drinking coffee and hot chocolate, and waving signs at passersby. Slogans on posters included “unregulated, unlicensed, and unethical”, “abortion bans are against my religion”, and “fund abortion, not fake clinics”.

Organizers talked to other businesses in the medical plaza to increase awareness of Gateway’s misleading and unethical practices. Activists introduced themselves to front desk staff and gave them fliers, or left literature tucked in doorways at closed clinics.

The Friday event drew interest from local politicians. Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, currently running for Congress, waved a sign that said “exposefakeclinics.com”. Andrea Cazales, a NICU nurse and city council candidate in the last election cycle, held a poster that said, “Not Bound by HIPAA”.

Gateway and other CPCs operate largely without governmental oversight. Since many are not licensed medical facilities, they are exempt from regulatory standards for healthcare centers. CPCs are not bound by the federal patient privacy laws outlined in HIPAA, so patient information does not have to be kept confidential.

Triangle pro-choice groups have started cooperating to campaign against anti-abortion centers like Gateway Women's Health. The network includes Chapel Hill National Organization for Women (NOW), League of Women Voters of Orange, Durham, and Chatham Counties (LWVODC), Interfaith Voices for Reproductive Freedom (IVRF), Triangle DSA, Planned Parenthood Votes! South Atlantic, Pro-Choice NC, and Carolina Abortion Fund. The coalition is hosting a symposium on reproductive healthcare and CPCs on Saturday, Feb. 7 in Chapel Hill. 

Work Cited

1. Licensed Facilities. NC DHSR. https://info.ncdhhs.gov/dhsr/reports.htm

2. Medication abortion “reversal” is not supported by science. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. http://www.acog.org/advocacy/facts-are-important/medication-abortion-reversal-is-not-supported-by-science

3. Gateway Women’s Care, Anti-Abortion Center in Raleigh, shuts doors after picketing by community organizers. (2025, May 22). Durham Dispatch. https://www.durhamdispatch.com/post/gateway-womens-care-anti-abortion-center-in-raleigh-closes-after-picketing-by-community-organizers

4. What a pregnancy resource center really looks like. (2024, November 20). North Carolina Family Policy Council. http://www.ncfamily.org/what-a-pregnancy-resource-center-really-looks-like

5. NC budget gives $20 million to “Clinics” that lie to women about abortion. (2023, September 26). Cardinal & Pine. https://cardinalpine.com/2023/09/26/nc-budget-gives-20-million-to-clinics-that-lie-to-women-about-abortion