When I saw New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announce last weekend that she would be freezing her eggs and publicly documenting the process on Instagram, I was taken aback. Not because I’m unfamiliar with the process (at 33, I know plenty of people who have frozen their eggs, excitedly updating our group chats with their “egg scores” after retrievals), but because seeing a politician use assisted reproductive technology, or ART, in real time—and not merely as a talking point—feels so novel.
Ocasio-Cortez has a lived experience that most members of Congress—who are largely male, non-Hispanic white, and very wealthy—simply do not. Feminist theory has long held that the personal is political, and Ocasio-Cortez embraces that idea in a series of Instagram Stories and grid posts about her egg-freezing journey. “There is so much to advocate for – from the exorbitant costs and lack of insurance coverage to addressing the enormous gaps in medical research on women and reproductive care,” Ocasio-Cortez writes in one caption. “My hope is that by sharing my experience, it can help others and perhaps normalize not keeping women’s bodies in the shadows.”
Ocasio-Cortez has always been accessible in a way most other politicians are not, with a 2019 Vogue profile referring to her as “the most regular famous person on Capitol Hill.” Still, her frankness about the parts of the process that worried her (“Not too long ago, I was waitressing and had to save for years to get to this moment,” she writes. “I wasn’t sure what it’d be like, or if it would be worth the massive investment of time, money, and the toll on my body.”) would be notable even if she weren’t a civil servant. Add to that the fact that, like the vast majority of women who decide to freeze their eggs, she is planning for her reproductive future as a single woman. (This week, it was reported that Ocasio-Cortez had quietly split from her longtime fiancé, Riley Roberts, well before she started the process.)
As I myself have mulled freezing my eggs over the years, there has always been some reason not to go through with it. First, I was dealing with worrisome cycle issues; then, newly out of a long relationship, I told myself that it just “wasn’t the right time” to invest in a future whose parameters seemed so uncertain. But if one of the most highly scrutinized and, presumably, busiest elected officials in the country is doing exactly that, maybe I can, too. As legislation in California, where I am based, evolves to make the egg-freezing and IVF processes less burdensome (in other states, the situation is quite the opposite), maybe Ocasio-Cortez’s example is exactly what I’ve needed to see.
