A doctor called by Democrats as an expert witness at a Senate hearing about the abortion pill on Wednesday refused to state that men cannot get pregnant.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) held a hearing called “Protecting Women: Exposing the Dangers of Chemical Abortion Drugs,” in which Republican lawmakers explored the risks of abortion pills as well as the fallout from the Biden administration’s mail-order abortion scheme. Pro-abortion Democrats in attendance brought their own witness, Dr. Nisha Verma, who is a based in Georgia and is a Fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health.
During the part of the hearing where lawmakers may question expert witnesses, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a staunch advocate for the pro-life cause, went back and forth with Dr. Verma in a tense five-minute exchange over whether men can get pregnant. Rather than answer the simple yes or no question, Verma accused Hawley of “trying to be polarized.” Hawley asked Verma right after Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) asked the same question and Verma struggled to respond.
“I wasn’t sure I understood your answer to Senator Moody a moment ago. Do you think that men can get pregnant?” Hawley asked.
“I hesitated there because I wasn’t sure where the conversation was going or what the goal was. I mean, I do take care of patients with different identities,” Verma replied. “I take care of many women. I take care of people with different identities. So that’s where I paused, I think. Um, yeah, I wasn’t sure where you were going with that.”
“The goal is the truth. So, can men get pregnant?” Hawley pressed.
“Again, the reason I paused there is I am not really sure what the goal of the question—” Verma began to reply.
“The goal is just to establish a biological reality. You just said a moment ago that ‘science and evidence should control, not politics.’ So let’s just test that proposition. Can men get pregnant?” Hawley continued.
The two continued to go back and forth for another minute before Verma said, “Yes or no questions like this are a political tool.”
“No — yes or no questions are about the truth, Doctor. Let’s not make a mockery of this proceeding,” Hawley said. “This is about science and evidence. I’m asking you — the United States Supreme Court just heard arguments yesterday at great length on this question. This is not a hypothetical question. This is not theoretical. It affects real people in their real lives, and you’re here as an expert, called by the other side as an expert. And you’ve been telling us that…you’re a doctor and you follow the science and the evidence. So I just want to know, based on the science, can men get pregnant? That’s a yes or no question. It really is.”
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Verma, who repeatedly advocated during the hearing for ending the lives of unborn children with abortion pills, again refused to answer and accused Hawley of trying to “reduce the complexity” of the issue.
“It’s not complex. I’m trying to get to an answer, and I’m trying to test frankly, your veracity as a medical professional and as a scientist. Can men get pregnant?” Hawley said, and Verma again refused to give a straight answer.
“I would be more than happy to have a conversation with you that is not coming from a place of trying to be polarized—” Verma began to say.
“I’m not trying to be polarizing…I think it is extraordinary that we are here in a hearing about science and about women — and for the record, it’s women who get pregnant, not men — we are here about the safety of women and science that shows that this abortion drug causes adverse health events in 11 percent of cases. That’s 22 times greater than the FDA label — another fact you haven’t acknowledged, and yet you won’t even acknowledge the basic reality that biological men don’t get pregnant,” Hawley said.
“There’s a difference between biological men and biological women. I don’t know how we can take you seriously, and your claims to be a person of science, if you won’t level with this on this basic issue,” he added. “I thought we were past all of this. Frankly, I can’t believe we’re still here talking about this.”
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
