OBGYN refuses to answer Senators’ questions on if men can get pregnant during hearing on abortion pills

"Ms. Verma," Moody asked, "can men get pregnant?"

Verma first corrected Moody, saying "Dr. Verma," before responding to the question with "Um, I mean..." and smiling without answering properly.

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Senator Josh Hawley took up the question and asked Verma again, "Dr. Verma, I wasn't sure I understood your answer to Sen. Moody a moment ago, do you think that men can get pregnant?"

"I hesitated there because I wasn’t sure whether the conversation was going or what the goal was," Verma 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, and so that’s where I paused. I think—yeah, I wasn’t sure where you were going with that."

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Hawley asked again, saying "the goal is just the truth, can men get pregnant?"

And again Verma declined to answer, saying "again, the reason I paused there is I'm not really sure of the goal of the question—"

Hawley said, "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?"

She again said "I take care of people with many identities, but um I take care of many women that can get pregnant, I do take care of people that don't identify as women that—"

"Can men get pregnant?" Hawley asked.

Verma would not answer the question. Hawley pressed again. Verma replied "I totally agree science and evidence should guide medicine—" As Hawley continued seeking an answer from the OBGYN who refused to acknowledge basic facts, Verma said "I also think yes no questions like this are a political tool."

Hawley replied, "yes no questions are about the truth, doctor. Let’s not make a mockery of this proceeding. This is about science and evidence. And I’m asking you, you know, 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 follow—right, 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."

Verma began to accuse Hawley of trying to "reduce the complexity of" the situation, with Hawley saying, "It’s not complex. I’m trying to get an answer, and I’m trying to test, frankly, your veracity as a medical professional and as a scientist." He pressed the question again.

"I think you’re also conflating male with—" Verma began, with Hawley cutting in, "no, I’m not conflating male and female. They’re two different things. There’s biological men and there’s biological women." Yet again, he asked Verma if men can get pregnant.

They continued to go back and forth, with Verma telling Hawley she’d "be more than happy to have a conversation... that is not coming from a place of trying to be polarizing and pushing." Hawley said he was not trying to be polarizing, adding, "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 the science shows that this abortion drug causes adverse health events in 11 percent of cases, that’s 22 times greater than the FDA label, and other facts you haven’t acknowledged, and yet you won’t even acknowledge the basic reality that biological men don’t get pregnant, that there’s a difference between biological men and biological women."

"I just 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, I thought we were past all of this. Frankly, I can't believe we're still here talking about this."

Verma said she is a "person of science" and someone "who’s here to represent the complex experiences of my patients, and I don’t think polarizing language or questions serve that goal. I don’t think they serve the American people."

Hawley replied, "it is not polarizing to say that there is a scientific difference between men and women, and I want this to be clear and for the record, 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, and your refusal to recognize women as women and men as men, is deeply corrosive to science, to public trust and yes to constitutional protections for women as women."