By Katie Franklin

A sobering report from the IndyStar this week shared the names of 96 people who were killed in Indianapolis between January and May of this year.

“The victims were friends and spouses, daughters and sons, mothers and fathers,” the story reads. “Most of them died after being shot, some on the ground where they were found and others at hospitals where medical staff were unable to save them. Among them were children.”

Scrolling through the dozens of names and stories, I finally had to take a break when I came across one-year-old Bradley Dunaway, who died of “fatal child abuse.” Gut-wrenching.

Two more of the victims on the list were a full-term pregnant mother and her unborn child, who were killed in a home shooting. The unborn baby was just one week away from his due date.

Fox 59 identified, “Baby Boy Hawkins, the unborn child of Kiara Hawkins,” as one of six victims in the incident. Various other news outlets also reported on the killing of the unborn child.

WRTV-ABC reported the child’s name as Khaso Childs.

The IndyStar story mentioned at the beginning of this post did not list Khaso’s name amongst the victims, more likely than not, because his name was not widely known.

Khaso’s not alone in that.

Sadly, scores upon scores of unborn babies’ names remain unknown. Their names will never fill a heartbreaking tribute story in the IndyStar.

Indeed, the unsettling reality is that criminal homicides are not the only cause of death that’s on the rise in Indianapolis. According to data reported to the Indiana State Health Department, abortions in the first quarter of 2021 are up from the first quarter of 2020.

Between January and March of this year, 1,162 abortions were reported by Indianapolis abortion facilities and hospitals.

The Indianapolis Planned Parenthood and Women’s Med abortion facilities drove these statistics, performing hundreds of surgical and chemical abortions in a few short months.

Yet because this unnecessary, fatal activity is somehow considered a “constitutional right” in the United States of America, its victims are not given consideration.

Still—just like the victims painstakingly listed in the IndyStar, these victims too might have one day been friends and spouses or mothers and fathers. They were most certainly daughters and sons. And they died by poison, vacuum suction or dismemberment—all at the hands of medical staff whose job should have been to save them. All of them were children.

The lives lost to homicide in Indianapolis this year were undeniably irreplaceable. They were human beings made in the image and likeness of God. And so too were the innocent victims of abortion. They all deserve to be remembered.