What should have been a straightforward yes-or-no question instead turned into a revealing display of ideological evasion on Wednesday, when Josh Hawley pressed an OB-GYN testifying before Congress to answer whether men can get pregnant.
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The witness, Nisha Verma, repeatedly declined
to answer directly, despite presenting herself as a voice of science
during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing
focused on the safety of abortion pills.
Verma, a Democrat-aligned doctor and senior adviser to
Physicians for Reproductive Health, first dodged the question when it
was posed by Florida Republican Ashley Moody, saying only that she
treats many pregnant women. When Hawley followed up and pressed her to
clarify whether men are capable of becoming pregnant, Verma hesitated
again, saying she wasn’t sure where the conversation was going or what
the “goal” was. Hawley responded plainly, telling her the goal was to
establish biological reality — particularly after she had just argued
that science and evidence, not politics, should guide abortion policy.
Instead of answering, Verma leaned further into ambiguity,
saying she treats patients who do not identify as women and claiming
that yes-or-no questions like Hawley’s were political tools. She accused
the Missouri Republican of oversimplifying a complex issue and framed
his line of questioning as polarized. That response only sharpened
Hawley’s criticism. “For the record, it’s women who get pregnant, not
men,” he said. “I don’t know how we can take you seriously and your
claims to be a person of science if you won’t level on this basic issue.
I thought we were past all of this.”
The exchange quickly spread online because it captured a
broader concern among critics of the abortion industry: the growing
tendency of medical professionals aligned with progressive politics to
sidestep elementary biological facts rather than risk contradicting
activist orthodoxy. Hawley wasn’t asking for a philosophical debate
about identity. He was asking whether a doctor testifying before
Congress could state, plainly, who becomes pregnant. The refusal to
answer did not make the topic more nuanced; it called into question
Verma’s credibility as a scientific witness.
The clash unfolded during a hearing centered on the safety
of abortion medication, particularly mifepristone, which is used
alongside misoprostol to terminate early pregnancies. The issue has
intensified since the Food and Drug Administration approved a generic
version of mifepristone last October, a move that reignited opposition
from pro-life groups demanding more rigorous safety reviews. Medication
abortions now account for nearly two-thirds of all abortions nationwide,
according to the Guttmacher Institute, with supporters pointing to
decades of studies claiming the drug is safe and critics citing rare but
serious complications and weakened safeguards.
The debate has reached the upper levels of the Trump
administration, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary agreeing to reexamine the
safety data surrounding mifepristone. Hawley’s involvement is also
personal. His wife, Erin Hawley, has been a leading legal figure in
court challenges to the abortion pill, representing pro-life interests
in ongoing litigation.
By the end of the hearing, the most memorable moment had
little to do with pharmacology or regulatory standards. It was the
spectacle of a physician, presented as an authority on women’s health,
refusing to answer a basic biological question — and a U.S. senator
having to state the obvious for the record.
SPOILER ALERT: Men cannot get pregnant pic.twitter.com/08JwHUlxIj
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 14, 2026