Church bells throughout the Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg will toll 40 times on Tuesday, January 22, to mark the somber 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the tragic U.S. Supreme Court decision which brought us the nightmare of abortion on demand for any reason during all nine months of pregnancy.

But for whom will the bells toll?

• The nameless victims who never got to see a rainbow…never got to feel the sun’s warmth, or a gentle mother’s kiss on their foreheads. It is estimated that there are more than 55 million of them now—black, Latino, Asian, Native American, white—all of them somebody’s child.

• The millions of mothers, many of them pressured by others, who were exploited by the profiteers of the abortion industry. Some lost their lives at the hands of their abortionists, others their health–witness the depravity and the disdain for women at abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s West Philadelphia abortion center, described by a grand jury as a House of Horrors. Watch the documentary series “3801 Lancaster” to hear testimonies from women butchered at Gosnell’s practice. And learn more about the brave witness of women who regret their abortions at http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/ .

• The millions of fathers, some of whom tried valiantly to save the lives of their children, only to be told they had no say in the matter. Find out more about their struggle at http://www.fatherhoodforever.org/ .

• The millions of brothers, sisters, and cousins who grew up in families where someone important was missing. College students can get involved by going to http://studentsforlife.org/ .

• The millions of grandparents who struggle to come to grips with the loss of the grandchildren they never knew. They can find healing at http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/ .

And yet, there is tragically more. The phrase “for whom the bell tolls” comes from a work by poet John Dunne:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

The church bells of Harrisburg will be tolling for each one of us, for, whether we knew these 55 million children or not, we have all been diminished by their deaths.