A common thread of ancient civilizations was the denunciation of child sacrifice in other cultures, when in fact all such cultures had elements of child sacrifice. The greeks most probably also practiced child sacrifice:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/10/skeletal-rem...

The same can be said of ancient Israelites (read the tale of the daughter of Jephthah, as well as David's sacrifice of the sons of Saul "to the Lord"). The same can be said of Romans and Egyptians.

The destruction of Carthage probably included the slaughter of many children ...

And the resection of a solid tumour inevitably involves the killing of perfectly healthy cells.

- If you do nothing, sacrifice continues indefinitely.

- If you intervene, you'll likely cause a short-term uptick in deaths of would-be sacrifices, with the goal of completely ending sacrificial deaths thereafter.

If everyone is dead, they can't keep going around killing each other!