Photo of Sen. Josh Hawley, Dr Nisha Verma
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Josh Hawley, Republican Senator for Missouri, went viral on Wednesday for checking a doctor who refused to answer the question: “Can men get pregnant?”

The Christian conservative lawyer questioned Dr. Nisha Verma during a congressional hearing on the safety of abortion pills.

Dr. Verma is a licensed OB/GYN and a senior advisor to Physicians for Reproductive Health. But she repeatedly refused to answer whether a biological man can give birth.

At first, she danced around the same question from Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) before butting heads with Sen. Hawley.

Hawley: “Do you think that men can get pregnant?”

Dr. Verma: “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.”

Sen. Hawley asked the doctor over a dozen times whether men can get pregnant. But she maneuvered around the question and refused to answer.

“I wasn’t sure where you were going with that [question],” she said.

Hawley responded, “Well, the goal is just the truth. So, can men get pregnant?”

Verma responded: “I’m not really sure what the goal of the question is… Yes and no questions like this are a political tool.”

Hawley replied: “The goal of the question is 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?”

After growing frustrated with Dr. Verma’s repeated refusal to answer the question, Sen. Hawley said: “For the record, it’s women who get pregnant, not men. 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.”

He added: “I thought we were past all of this, frankly.”

Last October, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a generic version of mifepristone to terminate a pregnancy.

Mifepristone is the most common way to have an abortion in the U.S.

Pro-life groups argue that the drugs carry risks and rare complications. While pro-choice critics cite studies that show mifepristone is safe.

Sen. Hawley’s wife, Erin, a lawyer, has argued against the use of the abortion pill.