AOC slams 'judgmental' backlash after announcement she is freezing her eggs
Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has hit back at critics who criticised her decision to freeze her eggs.
The 36-year-old congresswoman for New York used social media to address her critics, who insisted she would regret the process.
She has also had criticism regarding her decisions on motherhood, amid her rise in politics and a potential 2028 presidential run.
Ocasio-Cortez was asked on Instagram whether she has any regrets on freezing her eggs, she responded ‘no’.
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“The answer to that simply is no,” she replied. “I was born a woman, period. And I have no control over that, and I wouldn’t want to change that.”
She continued: “And the way I feel is, any negativity or judgment that I would receive at any point is negativity that I would receive for being a woman, whether I shared this information or not. So I might as well help others”
The congresswoman recently told her followers that she decided to freeze her eggs and wanted to ‘share with you all a decision that is very personal that I’ve made that has taken me time to consider, weigh and save up for,’.
In her announcement video, she shared: “Normally, I keep my private life quite private. But I have made the decision to freeze my eggs. And I want to share this because I was weighing it for a very long time, and there isn't a ton out there, and it can feel very daunting.”
AOC filmed herself unboxing the medication needed for the process before preparing for her first injection. She told her viewers: “Don’t be weird about this even though I know you all will be.”
She discussed what she said was a lack of information available for women interested in freezing their eggs.
“We are not prepared for our own lives, whether that is in puberty, whether that is in pregnancy, whether that is in perimenopause, menopause... whether you want to plan to have a family, whether you don’t plan to have children biologically,” she explained in one of her videos.
Ocasio-Cortez said she was aware that making her fertility choices public could expose her to additional political scrutiny, with her personal decisions potentially becoming part of how her career is viewed.
But she said that concern was not enough to deter her from speaking openly about the pressures women face when it comes to family planning and their careers.
“You know, men run for office ... and people don’t think in the back of their mind, ‘Okay, this guy’s running for office. How old is he? Is he going to want to start a family?’ ” she said.
“People don’t go down those rabbit holes and fixate on them for men in terms of their decision the way that they do for women,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
AOC is increasingly being discussed as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, although she has not announced a run.
Last week, Ocasio-Cortez said on ABC’s This Week that she hasn’t ruled out running for president in 2028, or challenging Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer for his New York seat. She said she wants to use her platform to make conversations about the realities women face in their personal and professional lives more normal, while also drawing attention to the Trump administration’s policies.
Greg Harris