The Ongoing Massacre of Innocents
If you value articles like this, sign up for our daily email newsletter and support us with a donation.
Within the octave of Christmas, on Dec. 28, the Church remembered the massacre of young children by power-crazed King Herod in an attempt to kill the infant Jesus. The horrific event is recounted in Matthew's gospel:
"When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi."
Two thousand years later, the mass murder of innocents by Herod's henchmen still leaves the faithful aghast.
But as brutal as the actions of the ancient King of Judea, the number of innocents currently slaughtered by an industrial-sized killing machine makes Herod's efforts look like amateur hour.
And – in a perverse reversal – in Jesus time, Herod's henchmen hunted down the babies, ripping them from their mothers' arms; in our time, mothers proffer their babies to the abortionist – either paying out-of-pocket for the deed or requiring fellow taxpayers to chip in.
MIND-BOGGLING NUMBERS
Worldometer, a reference website providing up-to-the-millisecond data on a range of topics, reported that abortion was the leading cause of death throughout the world in 2024.
At noon on Dec. 31, 2024, the website posted that 45.1 million unborn babies were aborted in the course of the year.
To put the 45 million number in context, compare it to the 8.2 million people who died from cancer, 5 million from smoking, 1.7 million of HIV/AIDS, 1.35 million from traffic fatalities, and 1.1 million from suicide that the site also reported.
At the time of this writing on Jan. 3, 2025, Worldometer reports 300,000 babies have already been massacred in their mother's wombs.
Since the US Supreme Court's Dobbs decision in 2022 returned the power to regulate abortion to the states, the average number of tiny babies being killed has continued to rise.
According to #WeCount, a research project from the Society of Family Planning, an average of roughly 100,000 unborn babies were executed each month in the first three months of 2024. This is about 12,000 more abortions each month, i.e., 14% higher than the average, from the same period in 2023.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – much slower on the uptick than Worldometer, and even #WeCount, in gathering data – doesn't yet have information on the number of abortions performed in 2024.
Its latest figures report that in 2022, a total of 613,383 legally induced abortions were performed in what it calls "48 reporting areas." The abortion rate was 11.2 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years, it adds.
According to the CDC, black women in 2022 had the highest abortion rate of any demographic (24.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 compared to 5.7 abortions per 1,000 white women of the same age group). This rate recalls the expression that of the most dangerous places for a black baby to be is inside his mother's womb – indeed, the data proves this expression to be true for any baby who has been conceived.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S RECORD NUMBER ABORTIONS AND EARNINGS
Planned Parenthood – King Herod's wildly successful progeny – reported similarly horrific numbers.
According to a 2024 report, perversely titled "Above and Beyond," the abortion giant performed 392,715 abortions between Oct. 1, 2021 and Sept. 30, 2022; an increase of 5% compared to the previous year – and the highest numbers ever recorded.
Liberty Counsel, a law firm dedicated to advancing the sanctity of life and the family, broke down the significance of these numbers:
"[This] means Planned Parenthood killed 1,075 babies in abortions every single day even though the abortion giant claims its main focus is merely 'women's health care.' In other words, Planned Parenthood kills 44 babies every hour."
In its 2022-23 annual report, Planned Parenthood earned nearly $2.1 billion in income and holds over $2.5 billion in net assets – up from the previous year.
Taxpayers funded the hungry abortion giant in the form of government grants, contracts and Medicaid reimbursements to the tune of $699.3 million. This is almost $2 million per day – making up 34% of Planned Parenthood's overall revenue.
Suffice it to say, the abstracted numbers and dollar signs represent a heinous reality that cannot be separated from the excruciating pain unborn babies being executed at this very moment are enduring.
BLESSING EVIL
In the upside down world of Planned Parenthood where so-called reproductive rights trump the life of unborn babies, religious leaders are actually "blessing" US abortuaries.
The New York Times reported on the recent ritual blessing of a year-old abortion clinic in rural Maryland by a Baptist minister, a Presbyterian pastor and a Jewish cantor – an all-female trio.
According to the Times, they "held burning incense as they walked quietly through the empty, white-walled clinic. They blessed the exam tables and their stirrups, the boxes of disposable gowns and the cushioned chairs in the recovery room, where women are moved after their abortions."
"They wanted to show that religion could be a source of support for abortion rights," the report continued.
"You all are blessings to those who come to you for care during some of their most vulnerable and sometimes painful moments," extolled Rev. Katey Zeh, an ordained Baptist minister, to staff members congregated "in the clinic's colorful waiting room."
Zeh runs the Religious Community for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), an organization "committed to fulfilling the sacred task of dismantling and healing religiously-based abortion stigma and shame."
RCRC's creed (in marked contrast to the Apostle's Creed) accepts that
Reproductive decision-making is sacred.
Reproductive freedom is religious freedom.
People of faith protect the freedom to choose.
The organization routinely holds similar blessings as the one held in Maryland at other abortion clinics.
GOOD NEWS
In the midst of the bad news, Souls and Liberty received words of encouragement from across the ocean from Dr. Imre Téglásy.
The ardent pro-lifer acknowledges the grim state of affairs in the world and in his native Hungary. He laments the "20-25,000 fetal corpses per year in his country" and "the same number of mothers and fathers" who suffer the subsequent emotional and spiritual wounds as a result.
"If we look at this genocide in historical terms, then we must reckon with the fact that in the 68 years since the legalization of artificial abortion in June 1956, more than 7 million souls were lost in the territory of our mutilated 'motherland' ... this number exceeds the total number of Hungarians' losses in all historical wars." – Dr. Imre Téglásy
He cites the despondent verse of Hungarian poet, Miklós Radnóti (1909-1944), whose life spanned the world wars and its corresponding moral decline. In one of his last poems, the poet wrote: "I lived in an age on this earth, / when the child was a curse to its mother, / and the woman was happy / if she miscarried."
But Téglásy, a devout Catholic, directs us to Mary for help out of the hell:
"We can make the New Year more holy and human by contemplating the situation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother who carried the Son of Man in her womb. The challenge of her unexpected pregnancy could have triggered a serious crisis of emotion in her. The Virgin, who had not previously had contact with a man, could rightly feel her situation as dangerous. In her community, not meeting the requirements of purity could've seen her stoned to death.
Despite the danger to her own life, she humbly bowed her head before the life conceived in her and said: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word!'
Today's Herodian legislators, who use bloody violence, subvert the word of God and the fundamental biological law, recorded in Genesis: 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth!'
The example of Mary stands against the evil tendency of people to self-destruct who live with the devilish prohibition: "Do not multiply and fill the earth!"
Simply, the Hungarian pro-lifer believes looking to Mary can guide our prayers – and our actions – toward resisting the ongoing massacre of innocents.
Téglásy, himself an abortion survivor, created the "Mother-Motherland Foundation" (Anya-Ország Alapítvány), as his mode of action. The foundation provides food and shelter for homeless pregnant women, in and around Budapest, and helps them give birth to their children.
The organization, according to Téglásy, "helps many desperate women avoid giving their unborn children to the abortionists, i.e., the modern Herods, and connects them with Christian families looking to adopt the children, should the mothers choose."
Dr. Barbara Toth has a doctorate in rhetoric and composition from Bowling Green State University. She has taught high school in Poland and Oman and at universities in the US, China and Saudi Arabia. Her work in setting up a writing center at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahmen University, an all-women's university in Riyadh, has been cited in American journals. Toth has published academic and non-academic articles and poems internationally.
Editor's note:
HOW SOULS AND LIBERTY WILL MOVE FORWARD THE NEXT FOUR YEARS
There can be no doubt we have witnessed an extraordinary moment in the history of the United States and the world. The election of Donald Trump to a second Presidential term is a great victory for Christian patriots, but it is not a complete or final victory. Rather, it is a reprieve from the ceaseless assaults on life, liberty and faith we have had to endure for four years.
Donald Trump will be president once again in a matter of weeks. Even now, his decisions, Cabinet selections, and force of personality are shaping the United States and the world in ways we could only dream of.
We have a Heaven-sent opportunity to step up and ensure this victory is not merely a one-off, but the first of many and the foundation of a lasting legacy of patriotic, Christian, pro-family policies.
Souls and Liberty will be part of that effort, but we cannot do it without you. It will require reporting and activism that YOU can be a part of.
Can you step up and support us? Just once – a one-time donation is very valuable. Or, better yet, support us every month with a recurring donation. Thank you, and may God bless you.
Stephen Wynne
Editor-in-Chief, Souls and Liberty