(LifeSiteNews) — In a mind-boggling exchange at the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) on January 14, Dr. Nisha Verma of the abortion activist group Physicians for Reproductive Health could not tell Senator Josh Hawley whether men can get pregnant.
Verma, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist, was called as a witness by Democrats to testify in favor of access to the dangerous abortion pill in a hearing titled “Protecting Women: Exposing the Dangers of Chemical Abortion Drugs.” Verma claimed that the abortion pill is safe and effective, ignoring both a growing body of evidence that the abortion pill harms women and the fact that it is used to end the life of a pre-born child.
Republican Senator Ashley Moody asked Verma directly whether she believed men can get pregnant; Verma hesitated, and then pivoted, stating that she treats “people with many identities” and declining to answer the question. Senator Hawley then followed up, asking Verma the same question.
🚨 HOLY CRAP. This actually just happened on Capitol Hill.
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY: “Can men get pregnant?”
LIBERAL DR. VERMA: “I’m not sure what the goal of the question is.”
HAWLEY: “The goal is to establish a biological reality. Can men get pregnant?”
VERMA: “I take care of… pic.twitter.com/uzYjGJuZmH
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 14, 2026
“I hesitated there because I wasn’t sure where the conversation was going or what the goal was,” she replied. “I mean, I do take care of patients with different identities, I take care of many women, I take care of people with different identities, so, um, that’s where I paused. I think I wasn’t sure where you were going with that.”
“The goal is just the truth,” Hawley replied. “So, can men get pregnant?”
“Again, the reason I pause there is because I’m not really sure what the goal of the question is … ” she responded.
“The goal is to establish biological reality,” Hawley interrupted. “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?” When Verma again asserted that she takes care of people with many identities, Hawley repeated the question a third time: “Can men get pregnant?”
“I do take care of people who don’t identify as women,” Verma said.
Hawley tried a fourth time. “Can men get pregnant? Let me remind you of what you just testified to a moment ago. ‘Science and evidence should control, not politics.’ So. Can men get pregnant? You’re a doctor. Do science and evidence tell us that men can get pregnant? Biological men. Can they get pregnant?”
Verma squirmed and told Hawley that “yes-no questions are a political tool.” Hawley reiterated that the question is, in fact, “about the truth,” and reminded her that the U.S. Supreme Court just heard expansive arguments about this very proposition, referring to Little v. Hecox (on Idaho’s ban on trans-identifying males in female sports) and West Virginia v. B.P.J, challenging that state’s “Save Women’s Sports Act.”
“This question is not hypothetical, it is not theoretical, it affects real people and their real lives,” Hawley told her. “You’re here as an expert, called by the other side as an expert, you’re a doctor, and you’ve been telling us that 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 … I’m trying to test your veracity as a medical professional and a scientist.”
The debate carried on for five full minutes, with Verma stonewalling and Hawley insisting that she answer the simple question. Finally, Hawley got frustrated:
I think it is extraordinary that we are 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% of cases, that’s 22% greater than the FDA label, another fact you haven’t acknowledged, and yet you won’t even acknowledge the basic reality biological men don’t get pregnant! 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 us on this basic issue.
Verma informed him that he was being polarizing, and Hawley responded:
It is not polarizing to say that women are a biological reality and should be treated and protected as such. That is not polarizing, that is truth. It is also, by the way, the United States Constitution, which offers unique protections to women in a variety of circumstances as women. Your refusal to recognize women and women and men as men is deeply corrosive to science, to public trust, and yes, to constitutional protections for women. I think it’s extraordinary that you would sit here and advance a political agenda that has been thoroughly discredited and rejected by the American people in this forum, and I’m glad we had this exchange.
Hawley is precisely right. Velma’s refusal to say that men cannot get pregnant revealed that she prizes ideology and politics over science and truth, which is precisely why she defends the abortion pill despite evidence of how dangerous it is. For her, the ability to end the lives of pre-born children with chemical drugs is more important than female safety. For her, endorsing gender ideology is more important than female safety. Hawley didn’t even have to expose her — she exposed herself.
Interestingly, similar scenarios unfolded at the U.S. Supreme Court this month. When Justice Samuel Alito asked the ACLU lawyer what it means to be a man or a woman, the ACLU lawyer replied, “We do not have a definition for the Court.”
Justice Alito: “What does it mean to be a man or woman?”
ACLU lawyer: “We do not have a definition for the Court.”
Justice Alito: “How can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means?pic.twitter.com/ttCuVT70st
— CJ Pearson (@Cjpearson) January 13, 2026
Alito’s response sums up the challenge for LGBT activists: “How can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means?”
As Adrian Vermeule trenchantly put it, “The very fact that the highest court in the land is solemnly deliberating over (transgender sports case) is an indictment in itself.”
