Politico’s Burgess Everett said Gillibrand, who was spotted chatting with Roberts before President Joe Biden addressed Congress, didn’t specifically reference Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision protecting abortion rights, or the other decisions that have supported it. But Gillibrand said she was hopeful the justice would catch her meaning.

“Hopefully he understood what I meant,” the senator said. “I just said you have a role to play as the chief justice of the Supreme Court to do your job and to uphold the law and to do what’s right.”

Gillibrand later said that Roberts was the “only hope that women in America have.”