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" What does it mean to be unafraid of life? In a messy and complicated world, to be unafraid doesn&amp;#039;t just mean being sure of your own righteousness; it means transcending what&amp;#039;s scary about the unknown, or the things you don&amp;#039;t understand, or the fact that no one&amp;#039;s life is as simple as it looks from the outside. In the messy and complicated reality of living in a female body \u2014 a body that gives life and feels it end, a body that has the capacity for incredible sexual pleasure yet too often sees sex used as an act of violence against it, a body used in advertising as a stand-in for sex itself with little regard for the humanity of the person in it \u2014 &amp;quot;unafraid&amp;quot; is not a status earned easily. To be unafraid of life requires owning the fact that life never comes packaged as neatly as a political slogan. Today, former vice presidential contender Sarah Palin posted this response on Facebook to a Cosmopolitan.com article about a woman, Emily Letts, who filmed her abortion. The photo Palin used to illustrate her point, of Bristol Palin holding her baby, reads, &amp;quot;Not Afraid of Life.&amp;quot; The implication? Women who terminate pregnancies are afraid of life. &amp;quot;Thank you, women,&amp;quot; Palin writes, &amp;quot;for knowing you are strong enough and capable of protecting the precious life of your baby, even in less than ideal circumstances. Even in the most difficult situations (especially in those situations!), it is the strong and selfless woman who faces life head-on and seeks the help she needs, all while acknowledging the life within her is purposeful and precious \u2014 the life of a baby, the precious life of a child.&amp;quot; It is indeed the strong and selfless woman who faces life head-on and seeks the help she needs. For one in three American women, that help is abortion.  Abortion is a normal part of women&amp;#039;s reproductive lives. Since the earliest days of human existence, women have been trying to control the number and spacing of their children. We have evidence that abortions were performed in ancient Egypt and ancient China, hundreds of years before Christ. Aristotle and Plato both mention abortion. The Old Testament of the Bible refers to abortion, but deals with it as a loss of property \u2014 a person who causes a miscarriage has to pay the woman&amp;#039;s husband a fine. Abortion is a reality in every country in the world, even where abortion is illegal and even where it&amp;#039;s unsafe. The legal status of abortion has little bearing on how common it is, but it does influence how dangerous it is. Unsafe abortion remains one of the top causes of maternal mortality worldwide, with almost all unsafe procedures taking place in countries where abortion is outlawed. In countries like the United States, where it&amp;#039;s legal and performed by trained providers, abortion is one of the safest medical procedures around.  Tens of thousands of women die from unsafe abortion every year. For every woman who dies, dozens of others are injured. Does that sound particularly &amp;quot;pro-life&amp;quot;?  Women who have abortions are mothers, and women who have abortions go on to become mothers. Those two categories \u2014 women who terminate pregnancies and women who carry them to term \u2014 are not mutually exclusive. For the majority of women who terminate pregnancies, an abortion is a choice made with full knowledge of the realities of motherhood. For others, it&amp;#039;s a choice made so that motherhood will be an option later on. For every anti-abortion talking point about the children who don&amp;#039;t exist because of abortion, think about the children who exist because of it.  &amp;quot;Today&amp;#039;s liberal feminism is fake because it does not take seriously the message of true equality \u2014 meaning an equal right to life, including the rights of our littlest sisters in the womb,&amp;quot; Palin writes.  Yet it&amp;#039;s these &amp;quot;liberal feminists&amp;quot; who push for the very things that would make it easier for women to choose to have babies and would make life better for our littlest sisters once they exit the womb. That, unfortunately, does not seem to be Palin&amp;#039;s concern, nor the Republican Party&amp;#039;s. The GOP regularly pushes back on feminist-minded legislation aimed at helping families and children: children&amp;#039;s health care, prenatal and well-baby care, early childhood education, subsidized child care, and a living wage. And they push just as hard against the policies that have been proven time and again to lower the abortion rate: contraception access and medically accurate comprehensive sexual health education. For good measure, the GOP also passed laws that make abortion even less safe overseas, putting women&amp;#039;s lives at risk all over the world.  Preventing women from accessing safe abortion care, limiting the methods that decrease the abortion rate, and making it harder for mothers to survive and their children to thrive: Why do the people who support these policies get to call themselves &amp;quot;pro-life&amp;quot; again? Making the best choice for your own life isn&amp;#039;t selfish or selfless; having a baby or choosing not to isn&amp;#039;t what makes a person giving or greedy. It&amp;#039;s what makes us human. Abortion is as much a part of life as sex and birth and miscarriage. It is a part of good lives, of happy lives, of fulfilled lives. And it&amp;#039;s part of lives that also hold sadness and tragedy. Recognizing just how complicated the human experience can be \u2014 how especially fraught reproduction can be \u2014 and choosing to look that in the eye unblinking and without judgment or, as Emily Letts did, choosing to turn a camera&amp;#039;s eye onto one aspect of it? That&amp;#039;s not fear. It&amp;#039;s the exact opposite.  RELATED: Why I Filmed My Abortion Why Aren&amp;#039;t Politicians Fighting for Your Right to an Abortion? 6 Women on Their Terrifying, Infuriating Encounters With Abortion Clinic Protesters Follow Jill on Twitter. Photo credit: Getty Images  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/advice/a6737/sarah-palin-abortion-film/?src=rss>