“Something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences.” This quotation from Suzanne Collins’ “Mockingjay” all too well describes America’s status today. Many saw the renowned Hunger Games trilogy and trembled at the thought of a nation murdering its own children, yet in one year alone, about 699,202 babies die due to abortion.

The right to abort in the United States was legalized in 1973 with the Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade, in which abortion was made legal and individual states were given the right to regulate it as they saw fit. Since then, society has turned to seeing abortion as the liberation of women. It’s a woman’s body, so it should be her choice, right? The fact of the matter is, however, that when two humans of the opposite sex engage in intercourse, they open themselves up to the possibility of conception. Whether they want it or not, that’s just how bodies work. In the case of conception, a woman’s body becomes host for another human being. That’s not my opinion, that’s science. Starting from conception, pregnancy is no longer just a woman’s health care problem; there are two humans involved, one of whom can’t speak for itself. Exercising power over a vulnerable and voiceless human is a terrible violence.

Pro-abortion rights activists speak of the importance of informing women of all their options. We want to talk about informing? Nearly 91.4 percent of abortions are performed during the first twenty weeks of pregnancy. At conception, a fetus already possesses its complete genetic makeup, including its sex. At eight weeks it has formed facial features and a neural tube and it can feel pain. At 16 weeks a fetus can make its own movements and has its own fingerprints, as well as clear sex organs. During this time, fetuses can be sucked into a vacuum called manual vacuum aspiration, which removes the fetus from the uterus by slowly ripping it apart.

At 20 weeks, fetuses suck their thumb, yawn, stretch and hiccup. At 20 weeks, a uterine currette can be used to cut the fetus apart and scrape it out, along with the placenta and uterus lining.

What follows gets increasingly unpleasant. Abortion in the second trimester is legal in 26 states. During this time, a fetus’ features and limbs fully develop, and a fetus will respond to sensory stimulation such as touch or sound. Second trimester abortions involve dilation and evacuation, or the twisting and removing of the various limbs of a fetus, or hypertonic saline abortions, in which the fetus is burned by a saline solution.  While some argue that the first or even second trimesters are too soon for a fetus to truly be a life, being ripped apart or burned in salt seem gruesome ends for creatures that have fingers and toes, can feel pain and can suck their thumbs.

We can argue all day about women’s choices and women’s freedom, but this particular choice — abortion — is an exercise of power over the life of another human. As women, we are encouraged to choose what we do to our bodies. However, our bodies have uteruses, and those are for growing human children. After conception, for a woman to think of her body as merely her own is selfish and irrational.

Abortion is not only harmful to the fetus who is murdered, but also harmful to women. Common side effects of abortion are cramping, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and spotting, while much rarer risks include heavy bleeding, infection, a damaged cervix, scarred uterine lining, perforation of the uterus and damage to other organs. Along with physical side effects of abortion, studies show severe emotional consequences. Women who’ve undergone abortions have an 81-percent higher risk of mental health issues compared with women who have not undergone an abortion and a 138-percent higher risk of mental health issues compared with women who have given birth. Women who have had abortions are also at higher risk of anxiety, depression, alcohol abuse, marijuana use and suicidal behavior.

Not only that, but contrary to popular belief, abortion is not a feminist notion, as it does not liberate women. Early American feminists were opposed to abortion, seeing as they believed in the worth of all life. For example, Susan B. Anthony, the founder of the radical feminist newspaper “The Revolution,” deemed abortion “infanticide” and refused to publish abortion advertisements in her newspaper.  Along with her, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, suffragist and social activist, said, “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.”

Even today, the practice of abortion only overshadows the fact that society needs to help women be mothers. In fact, a study shows that 74 percent of women who get an abortion do it because having a baby would dramatically interfere with their education, employment or raising other children. The study states that 73 percent do it because they would not be able to afford a child and 48 percent do not want to be single mothers.

The main issue, then, is clearly not female pregnancy; it’s that women do not have the means to bring a pregnancy to completion. Women can’t afford children, they can’t raise them on their own, and they believe a pregnancy will interfere with education and career. Abortion is not the answer to any of those problems. Having an abortion does not fix financial status, nor does it fix the situation of women often being left to their own devices when it comes to unplanned pregnancies. Pushing abortion perpetuates the pressure on women to hate their fertility, instead of creating environments where women can love their bodies, while still feeling fulfilled socially and economically.

Abortion is ultimately a destructive practice, as it creates destructive pressure in women’s lives and it preys on unborn infants, whose only defense is their mother’s body. Abortion does not give a voice to the voiceless, it suffocates them. Why do we need to teach women to hate their fertility? Why do we need to dehumanize unborn children in order to increase women’s “freedom”? And how many babies have to die before we realize that a woman’s body  is supposed to be a child’s safe haven, not an execution chamber?

Letizia Mariani can be reached at mari8259@stthomas.edu.

The views contained herein are those of the author, not of TommieMedia or the University of St. Thomas.