What happens to aborted fetuses?

LoneWolf123

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I have read many Christian articles regarding that matter and they all essentially danced around the question, though they seemed to highly imply fetuses are not saved. (For example, one said: 'Mothers who abort kill their babies twice, since they also deprive them of the light of God's glory'.)
 

com7fy8

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Hi, Lone Wolf 123 > welcome to Christian Forums; God bless you, however He pleases :)

I don't know. God does what is right with each person who is killed before he or she is born.

Jesus loves everyone; and Jesus died for us, on the cross; Jesus has taken care of every person, then . . . however. But ones are going to be judged and miss out, in the day of judgment.

Now, you say you are a Hindu. So, may be you believe each human will come back in another life. That could mean an unborn killed was killed maybe as a consequence of how he or she lived in a past life; and then he or she will come back different, later. But I know not all Hindus might have the same ideas about things like this.

Likewise, not all people claiming Jesus and the Bible have the same ideas about this.

I understand the idea that all are born in sin, and therefore they are not saved unless they trust in Jesus. But ones feel deeply that it would not be right for God to condemn someone who is never born, never had opportunity to hear the Gospel.

But John the Baptist knew who Jesus is, right while John was still in the womb of Elizabeth. And I understand that even an unborn person has character which will later effect how the person is and what the person will do . . . kind of like the unborn is a seed of who will grow later; so God could evaluate about this, I suppose. And it is certain how some number of people see their unborn as being sort of seeds of who they will become later in those people's lives; and unfortunately they kill those little seeds so they will not so effect their lives, later. So, humans indeed do judge unborn people, plus decide if they are to live or not; and yet such judgmental people can cry so loudly against Jesus judging them!

So, in any case, I would not be wishful or hasty to condemn. But I can trust God to do all that is right, and not try to be His dictator.

Anyway, please stay around and ask questions and share :)

God can handle whatever you really are concerned about, and we can try > lolololol
 
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Silly Uncle Wayne

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I have read many Christian articles regarding that matter and they all essentially danced around the question, though they seemed to highly imply fetuses are not saved. (For example, one said: 'Mothers who abort kill their babies twice, since they also deprive them of the light of God's glory'.)
Not everyone agrees with that viewpoint of what happens to aborted babies. Assuming they are a life (which I do) they would be treated just the same as babies and babies have committed no sin and therefore are not prevented from going to heaven.

Mike Winger has produced a very good YouTube talk on this very subject a couple of weeks ago. See 'Do Babies Go to Heaven? A Biblical Examination'. I'd highly recommend it.
 
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ViaCrucis

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I have read many Christian articles regarding that matter and they all essentially danced around the question, though they seemed to highly imply fetuses are not saved. (For example, one said: 'Mothers who abort kill their babies twice, since they also deprive them of the light of God's glory'.)

There just isn't an answer to the question of what happens in a miscarriage or an abortion.

Historically Christianity has an answer about baptized children--they're baptized and so they're Christians. The question which we sometimes see get brought up is what about unbaptized children, and this includes the loss of a child during pregnancy.

There's never been anything resembling a definitive Christian opinion. Beginning with St. Augustine some medieval theologians proposed that unbaptized infants went to a state known as "limbo", which is often misunderstood in modern times. Some Christians in the middle ages imagined that there were layers of "hell", while heaven was reserved only for the righteous of God, not everyone who went to "the other place" had the same experience. Which is why, for example, in Dante's Divine Comedy the protagonist Dante encounters the Roman poet Virgil in limbo--the outermost edges of hell, a place that is by no means unpleasant but is very pleasant. This limbo was known as the limbo of virtuous pagans, and it's basically a kind of pleasant existence similar to a good life here on earth. It's not heaven, but it's not really hell hell either. So when some medieval thinkers speak of the limbo of the infants, it is their way of saying that while unbaptized infants may not be received into the fullness of heaven, neither are they consigned to hell; instead they are granted a pleasant afterlife that is still technically "hell" without ever being hell as popular imagination often thought of it in the western middle ages (largely influenced by works of fiction, just like Dante's Divine Comedy).

Now it's important to understand here that this idea of limbo is a very western idea and was never an idea that took hold in the Christian east. Likewise, at no point was the idea of limbo ever given official sanction by the Church, that is it was regarded as an opinion that one could have, but about which the Church had no definitive answer. So it was always only ever an opinion that some western Christians had as a way of wrestling with the very question you are asking on this thread.

Today I think it's pretty safe to say that the general consensus among Christians across different denominations and traditions is that we simply don't have an answer to the question, but we believe in God's goodness, love, and kindness--and so we simply trust that God has it figured out. With many, if not most--myself included--believing that the most likely thing is that they will be found in heaven. Not because infants or the unborn get a free pass or anything like that; but because we simply trust that God's good kindness toward the world in Christ means that we should be open to the reality that not just Christians are found in the Age to Come, but that God's grace is far bigger and more vast than what we happen to be able to know or say.

So, yes, you will hear a lot of "dancing around the question"; and that's because there simply isn't an answer to the question. It's not a question that arises or gets answered in our Scriptures--as such Scripture is silent and that makes it very difficult for us to say anything about it. There simply isn't a definitive theological answer that can be found throughout all of the two thousand years of Christian history. So it has always been an unanswered question that, basically, either is answered through opinion and speculation, or else is one of those things Christians simply leave up to God. It's just not our place to make that judgment.

And this does not apply only to unbaptized infants (including the unborn), it applies to a lot of unknowns. What happens to those who never heard the Gospel? What of those who lived in other parts of the world before the coming of Christ? Should we be hopeful that heaven will be a lot bigger than we ever imagined? What if, in fact, in the end, hell is actually empty? These are all the sorts of questions that have been asked throughout the history of Christianity, and while some Christians are more confident trying to answer them, generally these recognized as the kinds of unknown things that we believe are better left up to God, because God is just and we are not, God is gracious, and kind, and loving far more than we could ever conceive. So, we just accept that as unknown. But we are prayerful and hopeful.

It is my deepest hope and prayer that not only are the unborn and unbaptized infants found with Christ in the end, but this is my hope and prayer for all. That, if possible, hell itself is found empty in the end.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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AmigodeJesus

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What happens to aborted fetuses?
In God's mercy and justice, they will be as though they had never been. Read Job 3:16 to begin with. They are a special group, that neither receives resurrection nor punishment of hellfire having done no evil, nor reward of Heaven and the New Heaven and Earth having formed no character thereto.
 
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hedrick

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Is there a reason to think that aborted fetuses are different from miscarriages and fertilized eggs that don't result in viable fetuses? If there's a soul at conception, it's hard to justify.

I see two reasonable models. One is that there isn't a soul until the brain is capable of supporting one. There's actual substantial traditional Christian support for this. A lot of traditional Catholic theology didn't say that there was a soul at conception, but at a later stage. With current knowledge of development, I'd say that's when there is a functioning cortex, which is about 2/3 of the way through development.

If, however, there's a soul at conception, I think you'd have to apply the same criteria as to anyone dying in infancy. Aside from the limbo idea, I think most Christians today assume that anyone dying in infancy is saved. However the implications are interesting. Since about half of the fertilized eggs develop completely*, if the traditional assumption that only about 10% of adults are saved is true, heaven is going to be populated mostly by souls associated with bodies that never developed to the point of supporting them. This is logically possible, but I think is unlikely.

I'd suggest that the first view is more plausible. However most CF readers seem to believe that there's a soul at conception. If so, I see no reason to treat fetuses who are aborted differently from anyone else who dies in infancy. I believe most Protestants assume that they are all saved. I would agree.

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* There's actually a good deal of uncertainty about just how many fertilized eggs actually develop into infants. This article summarizes the situation: Early embryo mortality in natural human reproduction: What the data say. They estimate that 40 - 60% make it from fertilization all the way through.
 
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Sketcher

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I have read many Christian articles regarding that matter and they all essentially danced around the question, though they seemed to highly imply fetuses are not saved. (For example, one said: 'Mothers who abort kill their babies twice, since they also deprive them of the light of God's glory'.)
There isn't enough information in the Bible to give a clear-cut answer to that. There are those who emphasize original sin so much that they will say no, but there are also those who believe there is an age of accountability, and though there is no consensus on what that age is, the belief there is that children who have not yet reached it will go to Heaven when they die. And though there is no consensus on what that age might be, there ought to be a consensus that an unborn child has not yet reached it.
 
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Radagast

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I have read many Christian articles regarding that matter and they all essentially danced around the question, though they seemed to highly imply fetuses are not saved.

Those that are predestined to be saved (somewhere between 0% and 100% inclusive) will indeed be saved, as a result of what Christ has done.
 
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Daniel Marsh

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I have read many Christian articles regarding that matter and they all essentially danced around the question, though they seemed to highly imply fetuses are not saved. (For example, one said: 'Mothers who abort kill their babies twice, since they also deprive them of the light of God's glory'.)

Romans 4:8
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

That was already covered here Babies and children
 
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chilehed

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What happens to aborted fetuses?
The Catholic position is that we're not exactly sure, but we can confidently entrust them to the mercy of God. My personal opinion is that anyone who dies having never committed an actual sin will not suffer the torments of hell, because it would be a violation of Justice if they did.
 
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