Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez freezing her eggs as she decides her next political moves

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she is freezing her eggs as she decides her next political moves ahead of the 2028 presidential election campaign.

“This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life,” Ocasio-Cortez, 36, said on Instagram about her decision regarding her reproductive options.

The New York congresswoman, a leading figure of Democrats’ progressive left flank, did not say explicitly whether she plans to have children. She said in her social media posts that she was taking a “political risk” in talking so personally about her potential family plans.

She said later on ABC “This Week” on Sunday that she has not ruled out running for president or for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrats’ floor leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, in 2028. She explained that she wants to normalize conversations about what women face in their professional and personal lives, while also highlighting the policies of President Trump’s administration.

“In this political environment, where this administration is denying reproductive care to women across the country, from abortion rights to the ability to carry out a healthy pregnancy, I think it’s important for us as leaders to have these conversations,” she said.

Trump’s administration opposes abortion rights, and the Republican president’s first-term appointees to the Supreme Court provided the margins in the 2022 ruling that struck down the Roe v. Wade decision that had established a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.

Separately, however, Trump last year signed an executive order designed to lower the costs of in vitro fertilization.

Ocasio-Cortez sponsored a Democratic bill in 2022, when the party controlled the House, to codify abortion rights into federal law after the Supreme Court’s abortion decision.

As part of her weekend announcement, Ocasio-Cortez noted that women in politics and other fields face different standards and scrutiny about their family status.

“Men run for office, or frankly they interview for jobs, and people don’t think in the back of their minds, ‘OK, this guy’s running for office, how old is he? Oh, well, is he going to want to start a family?’” she said.

Barrow writes for the Associated Press.