By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
They came up, one by one, to lay a rose beside one of the crosses that had been erected to remember children killed by abortion.
One woman was overcome by emotion as she walked away from the display. She said, “I’ve never done anything like this before. It makes me so sad.”
Each year, the people of Perry County, Pennsylvania, create a Cemetery of the Innocents to mark a grim statistic: the number of the county’s children who have been lost to abortion. This year 35 crosses symbolized the nearly three dozen babies from the county who died from abortion in 2021—the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
It was a somber ceremony, as townspeople gathered together to call to mind the tragedy within their midst. No abortions were performed within the county limits—but 35 of the county’s women traveled to facilities within the region where abortions are performed.
The people prayed for those women and families who lost precious children to the societal evil known as abortion. And they vowed to do what they can to create a community where abortion is unthinkable.
Ironically, this year’s display was hosted by a church called River of Life. We can only hope that the women, so desperate that they would turn to abortion, rediscover the beauty and bounty of life and never again turn to abortion in an ill-fated attempt to solve their problems.