Last Thursday, an expository report by The Guardian revealed that Doctor George Delgado has been falsely claiming an affiliation with University of California San Diego medical school (UCSD) while he has been prescribing medication that he claimed would reverse a medication abortion. Despite UCSD requesting that he stop affiliating himself with the university one year ago, he continued to use their name as a credential, listing himself as a Voluntary Associate Clinical Professor at their School of Medicine.
Delgado has been offering a reversal procedure to medication abortions that requires people to take a significant dose of progesterone after they take the first of two doses of the abortion pill. This treatment has been labeled “unproven and unethical” by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The FDA-approved abortion pill accounts for 31% of abortions in the United States, and has been proven by medical professionals to have no available research procedure.
Eight states have passed laws requiring doctors to inform patients that a medication abortion is reversible, despite repeated statements from doctors explicitly calling these claims false. North Dakota is the most recent state to enact similar legislation, passing a law that forces doctors to tell patients about the reversal procedure as well a law forcing them to tell patients that getting an abortion will end “the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” The American Medical Association has sued North Dakota as these bills force physicians to act as mouthpieces for the government’s controversial and often untrue opinions, whether or not they agree with them.
Delgado practices his “abortion reversals” through the Culture of Life Family Services Clinic in California, a fake abortion clinic that claims to provide “Christ-centered medical care.” Fake clinics lie to women about the side effects of abortions to persuade them not to seek such a procedure. Personnel wear white coats matching the attire worn by legitimate doctors and falsely claim that abortions cause infertility or breast cancer. Deceptive advertisements in these clinics are designed to confuse women as they make time-sensitive decisions about whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term.
Media Resources: Feminist Newswire 6/28/2019; Guttmacher Institute 7/2018; American Medical Association 6/25/2019; The Guardian 7/25/2019
