A second chance at choice

Dr. Delgado, abortion-pill-reversal pioneer, leads Tennessee Right to Life banquet

By Dan McWilliams

Dr. George Delgado, a pioneer in abortion-pill
reversal, delivered the keynote talk at the annual Celebrate Life Banquet sponsored by the Knox County chapter of Tennessee Right to Life.

The banquet was held on Sept. 24 in the Bridgewater Place event center in Knoxville and fell during the 50th-anniversary year of the state TRL organization. One of the founders of TRL 50 years ago, Mary Dunn, was recognized during the dinner program and received a standing ovation from more than 300 people in attendance.

Dr. Delgado is president of the board of directors of the pro-life Steno Institute in California, named after Blessed Nicolas Steno, a renowned 17th-century Danish scientist, physician, and Catholic bishop who was beatified in 1988. Dr. Delgado is the author of Abortion Pill Reversal: A Second Chance at Choice, published by Ignatius Press in 2025, copies of which he signed for banquet attendees at the end of the evening.

Speakers at the banquet also included Carol Zimmerman, president of the Knox County TRL chapter; Will Brewer, the state TRL legal counsel and legislative liaison; Stacy Dunn, state TRL president; and Angel Brewer, executive director of the Knox County chapter.

Father Job Watts, pastor of St. Nektarios Orthodox Church in Lenoir City, gave the invocation at the banquet. Tomi Robb sang the national anthem, and Pastor Danny Anderson of Grace Lutheran Church in Knoxville led the closing prayer.

Those attending included more than a half-dozen priests, deacons, and Sisters.

Reversing the abortion pill

Dr. Delgado founded the Abortion Pill Reversal Network in 2012. He is the author or co-author of three articles in the peer-reviewed literature on mifepristone and abortion-pill reversal.

“Before we start, I just want you all to think, why are we here tonight? Why is each and every one of you called to be here tonight?” Dr. Delgado said as he began his talk. “I think it’s because we’re called to be transformative. Each and every one of us tonight is called to be transformative, to help Tennessee Right to Life transform this community and continue to transform this great pro-life state, and to bring the good news of abortion-pill reversal to your community to those who don’t know about it.”

Women who have started the chemical-abortion process “if they change their minds, they have a second chance at choice” with abortion-pill reversal (APR), Dr. Delgado said. “That’s what I’m here to tell you about tonight. I hope you can share with all those around you, all those in your sphere of influence.”

Misconceptions exist regarding the difference between a morning-after pill and the abortion pill, Dr. Delgado said.

“The morning-after pill is usually a high-dose oral contraceptive. It’s taken with a contraceptive intent by a woman who’s not pregnant, or if she is, she doesn’t know she’s pregnant. It’s taken with the intent to not become pregnant. Truth be told, at least some of the time, those morning-after pills are abortifacient,” he said. “However, the abortion pills are taken by a woman who is pregnant, who knows she’s pregnant, with the intent to abort her pre-term baby. It’s approved for up to 10 weeks of pregnancy in the United States. It’s been used very commonly up to 11 weeks of pregnancy and even beyond by women who know they’re pregnant and want to terminate their pregnancies.”

Surgical and chemical abortions result in the death of the baby, but the second type doesn’t always have to, Dr. Delgado said.

“There is one difference, of course, and that’s the reason why you invited me here tonight,” he said. “And that is that now chemical abortion is reversible if a woman changes her mind. On the other hand, with surgical abortion, once the instrument enters the uterus, it’s over—the pre-born baby’s life has ended. But with chemical abortion now, a woman does have the opportunity for a second chance at choice.”

Inspired by the Holy Spirit

Dr. Delgado told the banquet audience about women who took the abortion pill but changed their minds and ultimately gave birth to healthy babies. In the first case, before he had developed APR, he said he received an assist from above.

“It was right there that the Holy Spirit put two and two together in my mind. Because I had a lot of knowledge of using progesterone in early pregnancy with women with low progesterone levels, who have a situation called threatened miscarriage, where they were cramping or spotting. And in those situations, you give the woman added progesterone to save their babies and save their pregnancies.

“I also had an inordinate interest in mifepristone, even before it was approved in the U.S. in the year 2000. I had read about it, I studied it, I know exactly how it works—it works by blocking progesterone receptors. So, the idea that the Holy Spirit put in my mind was, well, although these women might have normal progesterone levels, the levels are being made ineffective by the mifepristone that’s blocking them. I thought, well, perhaps I could treat them like I treat these other women with low progesterone levels and give extra progesterone and outcompete the mifepristone.”

Another patient of his who took the abortion pill changed her mind after she had an ultrasound, Dr. Delgado said.

“The moment I put the ultrasound transducer on her abdomen, we could see the baby and we could see the heart beating,” he shared. “At that moment (the couple) decided they would do whatever it took to save the life of their pre-born baby. She started treatment there that night. Well, the pregnancy went very well. And when she delivered, she delivered a very healthy term baby boy that they named Christian.”

Then Christian learned the story of his birth when he was 14 years old as his mother was writing a chapter for Dr. Delgado’s book.

“She left her computer open on the table. He didn’t know anything about this story. He went over like a nosy teenager would and read what his mom had written. He said, ‘Mom, is this about me?’ And before she could answer, he had a big smile on his face and he said, ‘I’m a miracle baby.’ And indeed, Christian is a miracle baby, just like the over 8,000 babies who have been saved by abortion-pill reversal and their mothers whose lives have been transformed,” Dr. Delgado said.

Common themes among those who take the abortion pill are “almost immediate regret, someone in that woman’s corner supporting her in her choice to reverse her chemical abortion,” and third, “almost all of these women have some faith background and have some faith in God,” the doctor said.

Dr. Delgado said that mifepristone is like a “false key” that “lands on the receptor, but it doesn’t activate the receptor, so the door does not open. The door not opening means that the progesterone effects are being blocked.”

Progesterone, on the other hand, “does many things for the pregnancy and for the mom when she’s pregnant,” he continued. “But the most important thing for our purpose is that it acts like a super glue. It keeps the placenta very well adhered to the wall of the uterus so that the baby can get nutrition, oxygen, and fluid from the mother and discharge his or her waste products back to the mother.

“With mifepristone being that false key, it blocks the progesterone receptors. You don’t get the hormone effect. So, what happens? That super glue dissolves. The placenta separates off of the wall of the uterus. The baby’s lifeline is cut off. The baby starves and dehydrates to death. And that leads to the death of the preborn baby. So, what we do with the progesterone is we get more of the good-guy keys in front of the lock, in front of the receptors, so that we out-compete the mifepristone. The second the false key comes out, there’s a good-guy key ready to go in to turn that off, open the door, and keep the placenta well adhered to the wall of the uterus. That in a nutshell is how abortion-pill reversal works.”

Dr. Delgado and his team have “helped women in all 50 states, including the great state of Tennessee, and in 99 countries around the world. Our success rates are anywhere from 55 to 68 percent successful reversals. And we found that there’s no increased risk of birth defects. The babies do very well. And the preterm birth rate is actually lower when we give the progesterone because progesterone helps maintain the pregnancy. And we found that in our latest study … that the side effects and complications of women going through abortion-pill reversal are less than 5 percent, things like bleeding and infection. So, it’s very, very safe for the baby, and it’s very, very safe for the mother.”

A cultural civil war

The United States is “very much in a cultural civil war” with “fault lines along the lines of abortion,” Dr. Delgado said, saying that coastal states, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Colorado are “very, very pro-abortion” while states in the South and other states in the Midwest are pro-life.

He said he considers his pro-abortion state of California “to be mission territory” and praised states like Tennessee for trying to prevent “predator states” from mailing abortion drugs into states where they are illegal.

“I really applaud your efforts to pass laws to go after these predators. And I’d also like to point out that the United States of America has a law called the Comstock Act from the 1800s that makes it illegal to ship abortifacient substances across state lines,” Dr. Delgado said. “It’s our duty as pro-lifers to call on our federal legislators and our Department of Justice to enforce that law. There’s no reason why that law can’t be enforced. And I think after the midterms (elections) there’s going to be movement in that regard.”

Dr. Delgado also spoke of the abortion abolitionist movement, which supports prosecuting women who attempt abortions.

“I really very much feel that a woman who goes to have an abortion, starts an abortion, or has the abortion, is very much like a patient who commits suicide,” he said. “We don’t prosecute (suicide attempts). We give them help. And we know that women who have abortions, 60 percent of the time, they’re under coercion. They were really the second victims. They were the victims of what I call in my book the medical-abortion complex. This is a big business that’s preying on these women. … After 50 years of having it drummed into our collective consciousness that abortion is a constitutional right, now is not the time to try to prosecute. Maybe in the future when the whole audience is different. But right now is the time to be very compassionate and to be very merciful to these women.”

In order “to go like gangbusters and prosecute the abortionists, we need to increase the criminal penalties for abortion, both on the state level and the national level,” he continued. “And especially Tennesseans need to go after these predators who are coming, sending (abortion pills) in from out of state. … These are the ones we need to go after. These are the ones that we need to put in jail.”

APR is “the new tip of the spear for pro-life women,” Dr. Delgado said. “In 2026, 70 percent of all abortions in the United States are chemical abortions. This is where it’s going. In Scotland, 90 percent of all abortions are chemical abortions. Here in the state of Tennessee, unless a woman drives out to a pro-abortion state, any abortion that’s happening in this state is a chemical abortion. So, 100 percent of the abortions that are happening in your state are chemical abortions. That’s why abortion-pill reversal is so important. That’s why it’s so important to give these women a second chance at choice.”

That “brings us to what I call the wild, wild west of the abortion landscape,” he said. “One year after Roe v. Wade was overturned with the Dobbs decision, the Biden administration lifted most of the restrictions on mifepristone chemical abortions. No longer was a person-to-person, face-to-face visit necessary. They then allowed telehealth chemical abortions. … You go on a computer, you have a video encounter with a nurse practitioner or a physician, and then they make the diagnosis and order some tests or send you medications. Well, that’s how you can order chemical abortions now.”

There are even “mail-order abortions,” the keynoter said.

“That is where you just go on a website and you answer a few questions and they send you the chemical abortion drugs. I was on a website several months ago where after only six clicks, the website was requesting my credit-card information to send me the chemical abortion drugs,” he said.

A colleague, Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, “went on one of these websites recently. She videotaped it, and it was actually used for a congressional hearing, a Senate hearing, on the dangers of mifepristone. She posed as a 13-year-old who supposedly had two previous caesarean sections, had a previous ectopic pregnancy, and was taking blood thinners, and they still mailed her the chemical abortion drugs,” Dr. Delgado said.

“This is big abortion. This is the medical-abortion complex who’s only interested in two things: ideology and money. The rest of it, they don’t care. They don’t care about the health of the mother. They don’t care about anything else.

APR is transformative “because when society looks around and sees, wow, this woman started her chemical abortion, she changed her mind, and now she saved her baby, that means that that baby is very special. That baby made in the image and likeness of God really has value. And maybe we as a society, we need to protect that baby and protect that mother and vulnerable mothers like her,” Dr. Delgado said. “And so, I ask you now in this spirit of transformation, think about how you can transform your community. Think about how you can bring the gospel of life and the good news of APR to all those in your sphere of influence, to your family, to your co-workers, to the public square. Take that chance. Speak your mind. Speak the truth about the gospel of life.”

Knox County mayor speaks

Mrs. Zimmerman began the banquet by recognizing church liaisons who work with TRL as well as members of the Knox County chapter’s board.

Mr. Brewer mentioned several county and state leaders who support TRL, including new Knox County Mayor Betsy Henderson, Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank, and state Reps. Lowell Russell, Jason Zachary, and Elaine Davis, as well as Tennessee state Republican committeewoman Staci Beeler, West Knox Republican Club president Gary Loe, former state representative and current state Senate candidate Jimmy Matlock, and TRL political action committee director Roger Kane.

Mrs. Henderson told the banquet audience that “we get to celebrate life together this evening.”

“Thank you to Tennessee Right to Life and the work that you do to protect the unborn every day, keeping the grassroots and our legislators informed about model legislation that can advance awareness surrounding the issue of abortion while also doing everything possible to save a single life as a full-time job,” she said. “And we are so thankful for Stacy Dunn, your board of directors, and your donors for the invaluable contributions you have made and will continue to make in defense of the pre-born here in Tennessee.”

The Knox County mayor added that “being pro-life and supporting life in 2026 is no small feat.

“That’s why voting matters, selecting leaders who support this work matters,” she said. “I don’t believe it will come as a surprise for anyone in this room to hear that our country’s moral resolve has been and is continuing to be tested every day. From challenges our children face in school to the abandonment of a biblical worldview in our culture, we as leaders in the community must decide to live, lead, and worship boldly.

“Such necessary leadership begins with standing for those who cannot stand for themselves. Being pro-life isn’t something we can passively support. We must actively advance the issue until we protect every life possible.”

Mrs. Henderson said she is pro-life because of her two children; because “every child is a gift from God and deserves the opportunity to build a life, family, and relationship with their heavenly Father,” and because of her father, “a Greek immigrant … who traveled here as a 16-year-old young man to the land of opportunity to fulfill the American dream.”

“Opportunity abounds for anyone who chooses to pursue it in America. And with that opportunity comes limitless hope for the future. To deny access to that hopeful opportunity based on an event or even difficult circumstances stands to potentially cut short the beautiful life that God has in store for someone. Someone who maybe doesn’t cross the Atlantic in pursuit of the American dream, but someone born right here in Knox County in difficult circumstances whose life can one day serve as a beautiful testimony to the amazing things God can accomplish,” she said.

Mr. Brewer said regarding Mrs. Henderson that ‘the moderate Republicans and Democrats would tell you that it doesn’t matter whether you have a pro-life or pro-choice person in county government, but that proves otherwise. Thank you, Mayor Henderson. We’re honored to have you.”

Celebrating a golden anniversary

Stacy Dunn, a parishioner of Holy Ghost in Knoxville, talked about TRL’s golden anniversary.

“The horrible Roe v. Wade decision was handed down in 1973. Three years later, all the paperwork had been done and all the hoops jumped through to start a recognized organization with a charter and everything,” she said. “Tonight we celebrate that milestone: 50 years of life in our state.

“Some very fine folks took it upon themselves to start this journey that many years ago, and we are all so glad that they did. When Tennessee Right to Life was founded, as Tennessee Volunteers for Life back then, our mission was never simply to oppose abortion. Our mission was and remains to protect every human life created in the image of God. Our goal has always been to build a culture that protects and respects the dignity of human life in every age, stage, and condition. That calling has led us into legislative chambers, pregnancy resource centers, churches, classrooms, county fairs, community meetings, and countless conversations with families facing unimaginable circumstances.”

Everything TRL does “begins and ends with the God-given dignity of every human life,” Mrs. Dunn said. “There are some who are now, after all these years, accusing us of not doing enough or not doing it correctly. They say that the work that we have done hasn’t accomplished anything.”

The state has gone from allowing abortions following Roe to the passage of Amendment 1 to the state constitution in 2014, “restoring the people’s ability—that’s us—to protect unborn children through our elected representatives,” before enacting in 2019 “the Human Life Protection Act so that Tennessee could protect unborn children when Dobbs overturned Roe v. Wade. Tennessee now has one of the strongest pro-life laws in the nation,” she noted.

The state TRL president said “Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry continue searching for new ways to promote their agenda. Abortion drugs continue threatening women and unborn children, and organizations continue working to expand physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia into our state. We know better than anyone that our work is not over.

“Tonight, we recommit ourselves to this work that God has placed before us. Some of our founders are no longer with us on this earth, but we honor the work they started 50 years ago. And when we continue that work today, we are a link in this beautiful chain of life. Through these 50 years, Tennessee Right to Life has remained committed to protecting every human life. That is our mission. And by God’s grace, it always will be. Thank you again for being here and thank you for all you do for life. I’m honored to be in this work with you.”

Getting and staying involved

Mr. Brewer then recognized Gianna Giglio, a 2026 graduate of Knoxville Catholic High School who won the Knox County TRL chapter’s annual pro-life art contest, and Felicity Thaller, co-winner of the art contest. Miss Giglio came up to stand next to her artwork for a round of applause.

“These two young ladies are the future of this cause and this movement. We’re thrilled to pass the torch on to them,” Mr. Brewer said.

Mr. Brewer, a parishioner of St. John Neumann in Farragut, has been traveling to Nashville for 12 years in his TRL liaison role “to lobby the General Assembly to pass pro-life laws and to not pass laws that are not pro-life. We have had, praise God, many victories in those 12 years and certainly before my time.”

The state has outlawed surgical abortions along with abortion pills, but “there continues to just be a mass influx of illegal abortion pills flooding into our state,” Mr. Brewer said, adding that Rep. Gino Bulso has sponsored a bill for the last two years “to combat that by increasing civil penalties for abortion providers that are sending these pills into our state. It would allow our state attorney general to go after these providers and to prosecute them civilly, to impose massive civil fines. It would elevate the criminal nature of the offense from what it is now to an even higher level of offense. And it would also impose medical-board regulatory sanctions against these ‘doctors,’ abortionists in other states who continue to ship abortion pills into our state illegally.”

The problem of shipping in abortion pills illegally to Tennesseans is a unique one, Mr. Brewer said.

“We don’t have gallbladder doctors in Chicago trying to consult patients in Tennessee about gallbladder surgery or appendicitis. It is unique and confined to the abortion issue because it is a moneymaker,” he said. “They don’t care who suffers. They don’t care who dies. They don’t care who bleeds out in the bathroom not knowing what kind of medication they just took. All they care about is the money that comes over the Internet on their black-market website.”

Legislative victories for pro-lifers included passing a law “to further criminalize aiding and abetting suicide and adding an element to it that if anybody uses AI to coerce or advise or help somebody commit suicide, that is added to the offense of assisted suicide,” Mr. Brewer said. “We passed a bill … that creates a stricter regulatory framework around IVF clinics so that it’s not so much the wild, wild west of medicine, that there are more governmental entities, both state and federal, that are overseeing that process. It doesn’t do a whole lot, but it at least adds some oversight that wasn’t already there so that these doctors feel the pressure that they are being watched and they can’t just dispose of fertilized embryos at will.”

Another bill passed “creates Sanctity of Life Day on Jan. 22 of every year. So that will be a great flip from mourning Roe v. Wade to celebrating Sanctity of Life Day and all the lives that were lost that we now pray for going forward,” Mr. Brewer said.

The pro-life cause’s “greatest victory” has come “in a place that we wouldn’t think our greatest victory would come,” he said, referring to a close vote in both the state House and Senate to repeal the 2018 state law 1-3-121.

“Several years ago, Tennessee passed a law that has nothing to do with abortion but that allowed individuals and groups to have more freedom to sue the state of Tennessee even if they themselves haven’t suffered harm from a Tennessee law. And as conservatives, we think, oh, we’re giving people more freedom. That’s wonderful. And that’s what the Republican legislature thought in 2018 when they passed this law. We were the only state in the country to pass such a law. And it’s never good when you’re the first and only state to pass something and nobody follows suit,” Mr. Brewer said.

“They are using this law … as the basis for their lawsuit to have legal standing, which means the ability to sue the state. And so, the attorney general took notice of this and thought, you know, we’re seeing this 1-3-121 statute pop up all over the place in cases that the attorney general’s office is tasked to defend. And so, what if we repeal that?”

The state also made sure a law “that would have criminalized women for having an abortion … received horrible headlines,” Mr. Brewer said, adding that “we were able to make sure that law didn’t even get a debate in committee. So that was another victory.”

Mrs. Brewer spoke at the end of the banquet and introduced Mary Dunn, 94, a founding member of the state TRL. Mrs. Dunn received a long ovation.

“She was one of the women sitting at the kitchen table that started this organization,” Mrs. Brewer said. “And when she started it with her cohorts at that kitchen table, she never would have believed that 50 years from now we’d still be doing this because they thought if we can just get people to understand the atrocity of abortion, it won’t happen. A civilized society will not kill babies in the womb. So, she is shocked that 50 years later we’re still here fighting, but we are still here fighting, and we all know it’s God’s fight. We’re just doing His work.”

Mrs. Brewer encouraged her audience to support TRL in its mission of education and legislation.

“We’re going to continue to fight in Nashville, like Will said, and we’re going to continue to educate the community.”

One important way to do that, she said, is through a TRL billboard on abortion-pill reversal that calls the medication “a hard pill to swallow.”

“We are launching this billboard tonight to stop women from ever taking the abortion pill,” said Mrs. Brewer, who also is a Holy Ghost parishioner.

For more information on Dr. Delgado and his work, visit stenoinstitute.org.

Tennessee Right to Life-Knox County chapter’s website is prolifeknox.org.