How a San Diego doctor led the antiabortion movement to embrace controversial pill 'reversal'

"I've never heard of anybody reversing mifepristone. Let me think about it," Delgado recalled saying on a Catholic radio show in April, reflecting on the phone call he got that day from an antiabortion activist who told him about Medina.

In his many public retellings of that moment, Delgado said that "the Holy Spirit" then quickly guided him to discover what he would later coin as abortion pill reversal.

Delgado's idea was predicated on experience he said he had in his family medicine practice helping women at risk of miscarriage by giving them doses of progesterone, a hormone that is known to support pregnancy.

Following what he said was a directive from God, Delgado rushed to find a physician in Texas through a network of providers who, like him, had been trained in natural family planning by a Catholic organization opposed to birth control.

"I explained to her what the situation was," Delgado said of the Texas physician. "I came up with the protocol on the fly and I offered that to her and she said, 'OK, I'll do it.'"

Medina went in week after week to get a progesterone shot in hopes of having a child. She ultimately gave birth to her daughter, who is now 15.

"I don't know the intricate medical stuff," she said. "But you have to believe in a higher power."

Medina has largely stayed out of the spotlight, distanced from the controversial movement she unknowingly helped ignite. But she represents both the reason antiabortion advocates are so enthusiastic about pill reversal — and the fear that it's generated among many medical professionals.

Mifepristone was not designed to be taken by itself, and the use of repeated doses of progesterone remains largely unstudied. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has deemed the practice "unethical" and "not supported by science."

In 2020, researchers at UC Davis — Delgado's alma mater — sought to study the method but cut it short after women were sent to the hospital. "Patients in early pregnancy who use only mifepristone may be at high risk of significant hemorrhage," the study said.

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