It was uttered because the practice Carthage of sacrificing children to Baal was horrific to Cato... (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginian...)
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.
- 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.