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. 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
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By Independent News Roundup