Senate hearing on abortion pill risks turns tense as Dem’s doctor sidesteps basic biology question

At a Senate hearing Wednesday considering chemical abortion risks to women, an “expert” for the Democrats refused to answer a Republican senator’s simple question, “Can men get pregnant?”

“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,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri.

Dr. Nisha Verma, an OB-GYN and senior advisor at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), called the question “polarizing,” saying she cares for “patients with different identities.”  

“It is not polarizing to say that there is a scientific difference between men and women,” Hawley responded. “And I want this to be clear and for the record: it is not polarizing to say that women are able to be treated and protected as such. That is not polarizing. That is truth.” 

The back-and-forth was part of the Senate Health Committee’s hearing to discuss the risks and harms of mifepristone – the first pill of a chemical abortion. Republicans have raised concerns since the Biden administration stopped requiring in-person dispensing and began allowing the drug to be shipped by mail to all 50 states, including Louisiana, where mifepristone is heavily restricted. 

“This was not a medically informed decision, but a purely political one,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill testified. “It was not even a legal one, because federal law prohibits distribution by mail,” meaning Biden “facilitate[d] illegal drug distribution.” 

The current relaxed federal regulations thus violate the state’s protection of women against the harms of abortion, Murrill argued. 

“It is illegal, it is unethical, and it is immoral for anyone to send pills to someone with no medical supervision and then tell them to lie at the hospital,” she said, referencing the advice Aid Access and other online mifepristone-distribution websites give women. “It happens because people from outside our state are sending them into our state to nullify our state laws.” 

She further explained that other states’ shield laws are now blocking Louisiana’s prosecution of out-of-state doctors who send mifepristone to men who force the mothers of their unborn children to use it. 

“Abusers have been known to force abortion pills down women’s throats, put them in their drinks and insert them into their bodies,” Dr. Monique Wubbenhorst said, citing 19 recorded cases of abuse as “the tip of the iceberg.” 

Wubbenhorst is an OB-GYN of 30 years, a senior fellow of ethics and culture at Notre Dame and has published 20 peer-reviewed papers. Despite her expertise, Democratic senators directed medical questions only to Dr. Verma, who argued abortion restrictions have increased coercion and abuse for women, claiming that telehealth medicine is “critical” to “get them the help they need.” 

Wubbenhorst distinguished between “telemedicine” and what she called “remote abortion” – a more proper term for the virtual prescription of mifepristone and distribution through the mail, she said. She called the lack of a doctor consultation “irresponsible” and “malpractice.” She also said any pregnancy dated without an ultrasound is “suboptimally dated,” according to ACOG’s own standards. 

During the hearing, senators wrangled over the legitimacy of various studies, including the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s studies that found more than 10% of women suffer serious adverse effects after taking mifepristone. While Verma claimed “the science is settled” in favor of the drug’s safety, Wubbenhorst pointed out that hospitals aren’t mandated to record adverse effects, meaning the drug could be even more dangerous than studies have already shown. 

Beside the safety concerns for the mother is the issue of terminating a life. Sen. John Husted, R-Ohio, shared his own story of his birthmother facing severe pressure to abort him in utero.  

“I wonder, if [mifepristone] existed then, would the outcome for me have been different?” he said. 

In response to Democrats’ argument that mifepristone protects women’s bodily autonomy, Husted cited two stories of manipulation – one in Texas and the other in Ohio – where abusers coerced and physically forced the mother of their children to terminate a pregnancy. 

“This is not the choice of a woman controlling her own body,” Husted said. “This is how an easily obtained drug that can terminate the life of an unborn child can be used to end that life without the woman consenting to it.” 

Committee Chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, concluded the hearing saying Republicans and Democrats share “common ground,” such as desiring a review of the abortion pill by the Food and Drug Administration.  

“I have no illusions that we’ll find common ground on everything,” he said. “But if our common ground turns out to be there should be telemedicine – actual human contact – and that people should not be told to lie to the doctors, then maybe something will come out of this, despite the polarization.”