A US Senate hearing on abortion pill safety descended into a sharp exchange after Republican Senator Josh Hawley pressed an Indian-American doctor to give a yes-or-no answer on whether men can get pregnant.
The confrontation unfolded during a Health, Education, Labour and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing titled Protecting Women: Exposing the Dangers of Chemical Abortion Drugs, held at the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Appearing before lawmakers, obstetrician-gynaecologist Dr Nisha Verma defended the safety record of medication abortion, saying it had been widely studied and used for decades.
Dr Verma told the committee that abortion pills had been backed by more than 100 peer-reviewed studies and used by over 7.5 million people in the United States since their approval in 2000. She warned that politically driven restrictions were harming patients.
The hearing took a contentious turn when Hawley repeatedly asked Dr Verma, a senior adviser with Physicians for Reproductive Health, whether men could become pregnant. Dr Verma declined to give a direct answer, saying she treated patients with diverse gender identities and arguing that such yes-or-no questions were often used as political tools.
Hawley insisted he was seeking to establish what he called a “biological reality”, telling the hearing that women, not men, get pregnant and accusing Dr Verma of avoiding basic scientific facts. “This is about science and evidence,” he said, questioning her credibility as a medical expert.
Dr Verma responded that she was guided by science but also by the complex lived experiences of her patients, adding that polarised language did not help medical care or public trust.
The exchange quickly spread online, fuelling debate well beyond the committee room. It also prompted a political backlash in Georgia, where Republican Congressman Earl L. Buddy Carter wrote to the Georgia Composite Medical Board urging it to revoke Dr Verma’s medical licence.
In his letter, Carter argued that pregnancy is a biological function exclusive to females and said any doctor unwilling to state that men cannot get pregnant should not be licensed to practise obstetrics and gynaecology in the state.
“Any physician who is unwilling to clearly answer that men cannot become pregnant should not be licensed to practice medicine in the State of Georgia. You wouldn’t trust a mechanic who doesn’t believe in oil changes to fix your car; Why should Georgians be expected to trust a physician who similarly rejects the basics? For these reasons, I request that the Georgia Composite Medical Board take immediate action to revoke Dr. Verma’s medical license.”
Dr Verma, who teaches as an adjunct assistant professor at Emory University School of Medicine and practises in Georgia and Maryland, has previously testified before Congress on the impact of abortion restrictions and is researching the effects of Georgia’s six-week abortion ban on high-risk pregnancies.
The Senate HELP Committee hearing was intended to focus on the safety of abortion medication, but the clash underscored how debates over reproductive health in the United States remain deeply entangled with broader cultural and political battles.
Support our Journalism
No-nonsense journalism. No paywalls. Whether you’re in Australia, the UK, Canada, the USA, or India, you can support The Australia Today by taking a paid subscription via Patreon or donating via PayPal — and help keep honest, fearless journalism alive.
