Is she trying to be relatable as she contemplates running for president?
Think twice before you comment on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her eggs.
On Saturday on social media, AOC announced to us all that she has decided to freeze her eggs. How she did it may just have been politically brilliant, even if intensely cynical. On video, she injected herself with the hormones necessary for her body to hyper-produce eggs for freezing.
She promised us she’d be pulling another needle out in the green room for the same reason before going on ABC’s This Week on Sunday.
I suspect the immediate response from the right is exactly what she might have been hoping for. There is the obvious (and logical) question: You’re 36 and have been engaged for years. What are you waiting for? And: Haven’t you suggested not having babies because of climate change? And: Why are you recklessly encouraging more later pregnancies?
Yes, I agree, you don’t want to encourage young women to wait forever to have babies. But, at the same time, don’t just start attacking women for being 40 and pregnant, please. Late pregnancies don’t always mean that a woman waited to have children because her career was more important.
AOC was, of course, asked about her egg situation by This Week host Jonathan Karl. As you might expect, Karl didn’t look delighted to have to ask about it. But since he went there, he probably should have gone all the way:
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opened up Sunday about her decision to begin freezing her eggs.
Ocasio-Cortez told ABC News' "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl that part of the reason she chose to discuss her decision publicly was due to the current political climate.
Read… pic.twitter.com/6xhL7U18B1
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) August 9, 2026
Had he asked about her yearslong engagement, of course, it would have been a gift to anyone putting together campaign videos for her in the future when she runs against any man for any office.
But there is an inconvenient question that could have been asked, since she has made the personal political here — because there are personal questions that are actual ethical questions.
Is this a cynical ploy to make you look relatable as you potentially launch a primary campaign for the Democratic nominee for president and keep your fiancé in a category you can use and maybe even abuse?
Riley Roberts — who has been, and is, as far as the public is currently aware, AOC’s fiancé (they met as Boston University students) — has come up recently in the House Ethics Committee. Roberts has been given a congressional spouse pin, affording him some higher-level access; why does he have that access while not being required to disclose his finances as other congressional spouses do? She has chosen for him to get spouse privileges when they are cool to have.
Move over “Tax the Rich” dress — the one she infamously wore to the 2021 Met Gala. How about “Play the System” instead?
Again, any commentary or questioning related to her egg-freezing or relationship status will be used to her advantage. And even if you are not a woman who has frozen or might freeze her eggs, you may know infertility all too well — and have experimented with hormone treatments. Unwelcome injections are familiar territory for women going natural and assisted routes to combat obstacles to getting or staying pregnant. Plus, nowadays, self-injections are familiar to many Americans taking GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.
It probably is political and cynical. But, at the end of the day, life isn’t all about career and brand and even being president of the United States. If Ocasio-Cortez does want to be a mother and isn’t yet because the man she has spent the better part of her adult life attached to isn’t ready to be a father — and we have no way of knowing if that’s the case — that’s a miserable place to be at 36. And that is known to be a bipartisan experience in modern-day America.