Dem
47
GOP
53
There are several things that today's Republicans, particularly today's MAGA Republicans, tend not to be fans of. All of these three are pretty high on the list:
What it all means is that what has happened in the last week, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), was roughly as predictable as... well, what happened yesterday with Todd Blanche (see above).
AOC is now 36 and is, of course, a very busy person. She is officially engaged, but has not been seen recently with her fiancé, so who knows. Add it all up, and the Representative decided that she wanted to freeze her eggs, so as to have that option available, should it be needed. Note that only 10% of people who do this actually end up using the eggs, so it really is just an insurance policy. Note also that just one cycle of egg freezing costs between $15,000 and $20,000, which may help explain why AOC's net worth remains in the five-figure range.
The Representative is, by all appearances, a very genuine person, and she tries to lead by example, when possible. So, having made the decision to undergo this process, she decided to share her journey on Instagram. She explained that she hopes to "demystify" the process, and added:
As women in general, we are not taught about our bodies, we are not prepared for our own lives, whether that is in puberty, whether that is in pregnancy, whether that is in perimenopause, menopause, whether that is in so many different aspects of our lives.
AOC also posted video footage of herself, in the green room at ABC news, self-administering one of the shots that is necessary to the process. She remarked:
I want you all to see that. Because women can do anything. And 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.
A bit later, she added, "Don't be weird about this, even though I know all of you will be."
Since AOC is an old hand at this sort of thing, she clearly knew what was coming. There was a little "weirdness" from (apparently) left-leaning voices, mostly along the lines of, "You're perpetuating the unrealistic idea that women can have it all—career, kids, etc." However, the vast, vast majority of the "weirdness," of course, came from right-leaning voices. There were many comments on Instagram, and the subject also spilled over to many of the (seemingly endless number of) right-wing talk shows and podcasts.
For example, here is self-described "theocratic fascist" Matt Walsh, who grows more desperate on a daily basis, as the Daily Wire marches toward insolvency:
She'll turn 37 in a couple months. If she got pregnant now, it would technically be a geriatric pregnancy. Instead she's freezing her eggs. This desire to start having children late in life is completely baffling to me. I'll have kids in theirs 20s by the time I turn 50. AOC apparently wants to have a toddler at that age. Totally backwards and ridiculous.
And here is Electora.Vote.com-described "complete loony bird" Laura Loomer:
AOC is freezing her eggs at 36 because she wants to try to "relate" to women when she runs for President in 2028. She knows freezing eggs at 36 when you've been engaged for 4 years is a lost cause. So she wants a sob story about infertility when she does decide to run for President. It's one thing to get pregnant at 36 and have kids, but freezing your eggs at 36 means she's probably not looking to have kids for 10 years.
She's been engaged for 4 years. If she wanted to have kids, she would have had them by now.
It's performative so she can relate to women. When people say "you have no children, how can you be President", she will play the infertility card to be a victim.
This is a political stunt.
In every accusation, there's a confession, right? This certainly helps illuminate how Loomer sees the world. Incidentally, she announced her own engagement about 6 months ago, and is childless at the age of 33, so she is undoubtedly well qualified to comment on the dynamics in play here.
Interestingly, some of the strongest pushback against these dime-store critics is coming from... the White House (particularly Stephen and Katie Miller). The administration does not care about AOC or her reproductive choices, per se. However, it does recognize that it's staring down the barrel of a brutal midterm election, and that the attacks on the Representative will serve primarily to aggravate women voters, while not winning any new converts to the GOP/MAGA cause.
And that is really why we wrote this item. In 2024, there was constant attention (including from us) given to how the Republican Party was doing everything it could to push women voters out of the tent. This time around, the attention is mostly being paid (including by us) to the impacts of the economy and the disastrous Iran War. But the latent hostility to women and to reproductive choice is still there, of course.
Trump got the votes of 45% of women in 2024; now his approval with that demographic sits around 30%, or below the "Bush line." The administration and the GOP are trying to shore things up with such stunts as the new vaccine schedule and "protecting" women's sports. Whether or not this stuff works, even a little, could very well determine which party controls the U.S. Senate as of January 3, 2027. Certainly, it's a storyline worth watching. (Z)