‘Can men get pregnant?’ oan

Hawley did not let her obfuscate again during his follow-up, however.

“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, I take care of many women, I take care of people with different identities, and so that’s where I paused. I think … I wasn’t sure where you were going with that,” Verma responded cautiously.

 

“Well, the goal is just the truth, so can men get pregnant?” Hawley tried again.

“Again, the reason I paused there is I’m not really sure what the goal of the question…” Verma reiterated, before Hawley interjected, “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?”

Verma said, “I take care of people with many identities, but I take care of many women that can get pregnant. I do take care of people that don’t identify as women…”

 

Hawley persisted, reminding the OB-GYN of her support of science and asking, “Can men get pregnant?”

“I totally agree, science and evidence should guide medicine…” She said.

“Do science and evidence tell us that men can get pregnant? Biological men — can they get pregnant?” Hawley asked.

 

Verma shifted her strategy, arguing that yes/no questions are “a political tool.”

“Yes/no questions are about the truth, doctor. Let’s not make a mockery of this proceeding,” Hawley insisted, explaining that the Supreme Court heard arguments this week weighing whether to allow biological males into female sports and asking his initial question a ninth time.

Verma accused the congressman of “trying to reduce the complexity” of her patients’ experience, then of “conflating male [and] female with men and women.” She offered to have a conversation instead, “that is not coming from a place of trying to be polarized.”

“For the record, it’s women who get pregnant, not men,” Hawley clarified, explaining that the purpose of the hearing was to protect women from a harmful drug. “You won’t even acknowledge the basic reality that 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 in your claims to be a person of science if you won’t level with us on this basic issue.”

Verma continued to argue that the senator’s language was polarizing, to which he stated, “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 protection 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.”

Overall, Hawley asked if men could get pregnant 12 times.