The state-licensed doctor has voiced ethical concerns over in vitro fertilization on behalf of "the pre-born" and said embryos have "a right" to be gestated by only their biological mother. He has gone further than antiabortion Republicans who have pushed "fetal personhood" arguments — suggesting on a Catholic radio show last year that frozen embryos stored in labs be baptized, a move he acknowledged would melt and destroy them but at least they'd have a "course to salvation."

Since he published a controversial study about his abortion reversal method in 2018, Republicans in more than a dozen states including Arkansas and Kentucky have moved to pass laws requiring that abortion providers inform patients about it. Meanwhile, Democratic-controlled states such as California face an uphill battle in their attempts to limit Delgado's influence, with past court rulings favoring Christian pregnancy centers that promote his reversal method in the name of religious freedom.

The Supreme Court's decision earlier this month is unlikely to deter him — and abortion-rights advocates are worried more suits will follow. Since the undoing of federal abortion rights in 2022, Delgado has been on the road, urging conservatives to become more involved in the issue and evangelizing about abortion pill reversal, even as one study of it was halted over safety concerns.

Instead of leaving California for a friendlier political landscape, Delgado has deemed his home state "mission territory." During his keynote speech at an antiabortion event in Corona del Mar last year, the doctor paced the stage and gripped a microphone, pleading with attendees to spread the word about his work, warning it is threatened by an ongoing lawsuit by California's attorney general.

"The battle is on," he said at the Port Theater to applause. "Goliath is attacking us right here in our own backyard. So we need to step up and fight them every single step of the way."

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Fifteen years ago, Erin Medina was consumed by a terrifying anxiety as she went alone to a Planned Parenthood in El Paso, Texas, to have an abortion.

She was unemployed and a single mother to a 4-year-old boy, she said, and could not imagine surviving with another child. But after taking mifepristone — the first medication in a two-pill abortion regimen — she felt a pang of regret.

"I was contemplating [abortion] because I had no support system. I was just trying to figure it out," Medina, now 45, told The Times. "I had received Christ the year before."

Medina said she delayed taking misoprostol — the second pill, which is meant to be taken up to 48 hours later — and dove into panicked internet research. She called a phone number she found on an antiabortion ministry website. That's when Delgado got involved.

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