‘Bold and ethical’: doctors on AOC’s egg-freezing journey - and Maga’s criticisms of it

On Sunday, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced that she is freezing her eggs. The 36-year-old New York congresswoman took to Instagram to document the process, complete with jabbing a syringe into her stomach on camera.

“Don’t be weird about this,” Ocasio-Cortez said, “even though I know all of you will be.”

As predicted, a cohort of conservative critics emerged on social media to bemoan AOC’s personal choice, which challenges their prescriptive vision for American mothers: young, married and uninterested in pursuing a career.

Allie Beth Stuckey, a conservative podcaster and author, is a vocal figure in the proudly antifeminist, pronatalist movement known as the “womanosphere”. She once described herself as “unapologetically pro-life” yet sounded decidedly anti-reproductive health, writing on X that Ocasio-Cortez is “glamorizing the lie that women can have it all. You can’t. Biology is real and how you order your life makes or breaks your future.”

Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, chimed in, writing that egg freezing was “one of the reasons why fertility rates are cratering”.

“AOC turns 37 in a few weeks so if she got pregnant tomorrow it would already be a geriatric pregnancy,” added Kolvet, who has no medical credentials. “This is not female ‘liberation,’ it’s a cautionary tale.” (Factcheck: Ocasio-Cortez’s birthday is in October.)

Rightwing commentator Matt Walsh also called out the congresswoman’s age, writing: “I’ll have kids in [their] 20s by the time I turn 50. AOC apparently wants to have a toddler at that age. Totally backwards and ridiculous.”

A 2025 study from UCLA Health found that the average age women freeze their eggs is just under 35. This comes as more women are having children later in life; the percentage of births to moms aged 40 to 44 increased nearly 40% between 2013 and 2023. Doctors who used to describe births to mothers aged 35 or older as “geriatric pregnancies” are now using the more respectful term “advanced maternal age”.

“This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life,” Ocasio-Cortez explained. She has since shared a video of her preparing to inject hormonal medications into her stomach, which she called a “pin cushion”. On her third day of shots, AOC wrote on Instagram stories that she was feeling good. “Luckily my job is a natural outlet for being pissed off,” she quipped about the possibility of future mood changes.

Doctors told the Guardian that conservative finger-wagging over Ocasio-Cortez’s age was not rooted in fact. “Thirty-six is a ridiculous age to be saying, ‘oh [egg freezing] will never work’,” said Dr Carrie Bedient, a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist based in Las Vegas. “From a success rate standpoint, egg freezing tends to be its most effective at age 35 or younger. But you do not fall off a fertility cliff when you turn 35. I would welcome any woman who wanted to freeze their eggs at 36, which is better than 37, which is better than 38, which is better than 39, and so forth.”

Some X users pointed to the fact that the vast majority of frozen eggs are never used, as if to discredit Ocasio-Cortez’s decision to freeze her own. Bedient says that’s not quite the gotcha moment critics might be seeking. That same UCLA Health study – the largest on elective fertility preservation to date – found that between 2014 and 2021, only 6% of people who froze their eggs used them for IVF within seven years. “Part of the reason it’s low is because many women decide they never want to use [the eggs],” Bedient said. “Many realize they don’t have to use it because they get pregnant on their own.”

Sidonia Buchtova is a physician assistant who founded Freeze.health, a website offering resources for those interested in freeze their eggs. “I think people focus so much on the stats about eggs not being used, and not enough on the peace of mind that freezing eggs gives women,” she said. “It gives them more of a horizon, more options, and better mental health.”

Rates of regret among women who undergo the procedure are low; one study found that 89% of respondents said they were happy they froze their eggs, even if they never used them. Ocasio-Cortez said she partly wanted to document her experience to show followers that “women can do anything”.

“I think it’s badass that I’m gonna be giving myself shots in the green room, get my glam on, roll out, talk international events, domestic policy, elections, pop out, live my life, do my thing,” she said on Instagram.

And yet conservative talking points about the egg freezing are cloaked in the language of concern. Katie Miller, wife of Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller, praised AOC for her decision – sort of. “If she inspires other women to have babies, we should celebrate that … But too many women buy into the feminist lie and spend their childbearing years climbing the career ladder,” Miller wrote on X.

Miller, one of the United States’ most prominent pronatalists, urges women to forgo all other ambitions, professional or otherwise, to become wives and mothers younger. Ocasio-Cortez’s choice to have children on her own timeline – or not at all – counters this messaging.

“People don’t go ballistic about men using Viagra or medical science for their own sexual and reproductive desires,” said Kari Winter, a professor in the department of global gender and sexuality studies at the University at Buffalo. “AOC asserting her right is bold and ethical.”

In an ABC interview, the congresswoman andmuch-rumored 2028 presidential candidate directly related her egg-freezing journey to the Trump administration’s attack on women’s health. “I think it’s important for us as leaders to have these conversations and share these processes, especially for working women across the country, and normalize them,” she said.

One of Trump’s campaign promises was to “protect” women – “whether the women like it or not”. Since taking office for the second time, his administration has targeted reproductive healthcare, from slashing federal funding for birth control to promoting a CDC head who called “abortion surveillance” a “critical component” of the agency’s agenda. Trump has called himself the “fertilization president”, with high-profile female staffers giving birth during his term, and yet the cost of giving birth in the US remains one of the highest in the world.

Despite Trump’s shallow attempts at spurring a baby boom in light of falling US birthrates – he floated giving out $5,000 bonuses to new mothers, along with awarding women fertility medals – women are opting out of starting families. It’s not always because they don’t want to: in 2025, a Harris poll for the Guardian found that 65% of Americans report the state of the economy has negatively affected their childrearing plans.

Dr Sarah Berga chairs the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University at Buffalo. She first started training in 1980, only two years after the first IVF baby was born. “It is amazing to me that people want to [spend] their time and energy to build families,” she said. “And if we’re sincere at all about being a family-focused country, we should make this available at a price that’s much more reasonable.”

The average cost of egg freezing – covering medication, retrieval and lab fees – is around $16,000. On Instagram, Ocasio-Cortez said the process will cost her about $8,000. The congresswoman mentioned she will pay about $1,200 a year for cryostorage alone; data from Freeze.health found that the average annual egg storage cost from 321 fertility clinics around the US was $697.

AOC also mentioned that she is paying out of pocket. “My insurance does not cover one penny of this,” the congresswoman said.

Reporting from The Guardian contributed to this story.