Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Faces Backlash Over Egg-Freezing Decision

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is shutting down the haters over her decision to freeze her eggs. During an Instagram Story Q&A on Wednesday, August 12, Ocasio-Cortez, 38, received a supportive message in which an unknown follower hoped the politician could “ignore the idiotic Republican men saying dumb things” about her. “They hate me ‘cause they ain’t me, and they can’t ever be me,” Ocasio-Cortez quipped in a video shared via her Instagram Stories, flashing a smile to the camera. The New York congressman announced earlier this month that she recently began the process to freeze her eggs. As Ocasio-Cortez planned to document the journey via social media, she was met with an onslaught of criticism about her career aspirations, her age and more.

She further addressed the commentary on Wednesday, answering another user’s question about whether she was still “young enough to have kids traditionally.” “The answer is yes, and also my biology does support that. One aspect to egg-freezing in this process that, I think, really is under-discussed is that a lot of people don’t freeze their eggs for their first child,” she stated. “They may freeze their eggs for their second child or even a third child. People may want to space their kids out, people may want to start and have their first kid a little bit later. If they decide later that they want a second kid and they try and it’s a little challenging, they can turn to banked eggs.”

As for Ocasio-Cortez, she recently shared that she had her own reasons for starting the egg-freezing process. “Usually, I keep my private life quite private, but I have made the decision to start freezing my eggs,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a Saturday, August 8, social media upload. “I want to share this because I was weighing it for a very long time, and I think that I was saving for it for a very long time and there just isn’t a ton out there [about it], I feel.”