Anonymous
Post 08/27/2025 19:04     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:This catholic speculation is dated. I'm not sure there is a specific rule, but prevailing theology says the baby will be entrusted to God - a loving and merciful God who will welcome the baby to heaven.


Are you suggesting that Catholic beliefs change over time? I thought they were eternal.


I don’t know why you’d think that. Catholicism has a long history of philosophical debate and evolution that goes back centuries. Bibical literalists are the ones that don’t really change. Catholicism has different philosophies and traditions within in as well as a history of syncretism.


Catholic clergy are very learned and the village priest was often the only person with any formal education at all. PP is right in saying that Catholic thought changes and grows through the centuries.

There once were only "altar boys". Now they are "servers" and include girls. That's progress!
Anonymous
Post 08/27/2025 18:58     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Estimates vary, but 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage before 20 weeks. The rate is higher when including very early losses that occur before a person knows they are pregnant.

Do all these unborn babies remain basically clumps of cells? Do they grow in heaven? Do they remain adolescents forever?

That would be more like hell to never be able to mature into an adult or have the experience of childhood and growing up.


A related question. For those who believe they will see their loved ones in heaven, what state will they be in? Will your mother be fit and beautiful in her 30s or will she be 85 with dementia and other ailments and unable to recognize you?


Your mother will be at whatever was her best age for her and also whatever was her best age for you. Otherwise, it's not heaven.


Really? Where in the Bible does it support this?


Nowhere, but if heaven is really a great place, then there's no dementia there. Maybe mom is both the best age for her and the best age for her kids. It's heaven, after all.
Anonymous
Post 08/27/2025 13:24     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:This catholic speculation is dated. I'm not sure there is a specific rule, but prevailing theology says the baby will be entrusted to God - a loving and merciful God who will welcome the baby to heaven.


Are you suggesting that Catholic beliefs change over time? I thought they were eternal.


I don’t know why you’d think that. Catholicism has a long history of philosophical debate and evolution that goes back centuries. Bibical literalists are the ones that don’t really change. Catholicism has different philosophies and traditions within in as well as a history of syncretism.
Anonymous
Post 08/27/2025 11:54     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
limbo is also dated- it was not thought of a bad place, but a place of happiness for babies unable to be baptized. limbo is kind of a theological idea, but not a teaching. as others have said, a more modern view is that babies will go to heaven. so, I guess, no we don't teach that babies end up in limbo.
Anonymous
Post 08/27/2025 09:30     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
Re catholics and unbaptized children - do they still teach they end up in "limbo," supposed to be a great place but no "beatific vision"?
Anonymous
Post 08/27/2025 09:23     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
Have you watched the movie Soul? I’m non religious but I like to think of it this way.
Anonymous
Post 08/27/2025 09:11     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
Anonymous wrote:I'm a Mom of 3 with 6 other losses. A friend who lost her baby as a stillborn expressed the hope that they would reunite in the afterlife and that hopefully her children aren't waiting long in their reality for the years she has left here.

I desperately wanted every pregnancy that I lost and while some were late none were as late as hers. What do you think happens to me in the afterlife? Do the 6 children meet me? In what form?


I had a loss and I believe she visits me via butterflies. Not every butterfly will catch my attention, but when they do, it’s a beautiful day, we’re having a good time and (typically) their siblings are around. It’s comforting. Having a loss stays with you forever, I think.
Anonymous
Post 08/27/2025 09:09     Subject: Re:What happens to unborn babies?
Catholic here. I think it is hard to be concrete when discussing heaven. I go by the promise that God will wipe away all tears and heaven is a place of perfect contentment and joy. It is not possible to perfectly content for those who suffered such great losses and get no closure. So yes, I believe there will be some form of closure for miscarried babies. I cannot say in what shape or form.
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2025 15:40     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Estimates vary, but 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage before 20 weeks. The rate is higher when including very early losses that occur before a person knows they are pregnant.

Do all these unborn babies remain basically clumps of cells? Do they grow in heaven? Do they remain adolescents forever?

That would be more like hell to never be able to mature into an adult or have the experience of childhood and growing up.


A related question. For those who believe they will see their loved ones in heaven, what state will they be in? Will your mother be fit and beautiful in her 30s or will she be 85 with dementia and other ailments and unable to recognize you?


Your mother will be at whatever was her best age for her and also whatever was her best age for you. Otherwise, it's not heaven.


Really? Where in the Bible does it support this?
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2025 13:37     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Estimates vary, but 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage before 20 weeks. The rate is higher when including very early losses that occur before a person knows they are pregnant.

Do all these unborn babies remain basically clumps of cells? Do they grow in heaven? Do they remain adolescents forever?

That would be more like hell to never be able to mature into an adult or have the experience of childhood and growing up.


A related question. For those who believe they will see their loved ones in heaven, what state will they be in? Will your mother be fit and beautiful in her 30s or will she be 85 with dementia and other ailments and unable to recognize you?


Your mother will be at whatever was her best age for her and also whatever was her best age for you. Otherwise, it's not heaven.
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2025 13:17     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
Anonymous wrote:Estimates vary, but 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage before 20 weeks. The rate is higher when including very early losses that occur before a person knows they are pregnant.

Do all these unborn babies remain basically clumps of cells? Do they grow in heaven? Do they remain adolescents forever?

That would be more like hell to never be able to mature into an adult or have the experience of childhood and growing up.


A related question. For those who believe they will see their loved ones in heaven, what state will they be in? Will your mother be fit and beautiful in her 30s or will she be 85 with dementia and other ailments and unable to recognize you?
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2025 12:36     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?

I have no idea, but my three little ones who didn't make it were buried under my favorite rosebush, and every time it flowers, I am comforted. The scent is divine.

Wishing you peace, OP and friend.
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2025 12:31     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Everybody will have a different answer. It depends in part on religion and upbringing. I’m Jewish so I was raised that there is no afterlife. I think believing in one can be very comforting though. I suggest talking to your clergy.


I didn't realize that. I'm not necessarily looking for a definitive answer, but just what others believe. I have a hard time conceptualizing what it means to meet someone in an afterlife that you didn't really meet alive.


I am agnostic but feel that if there is an afterlife with souls that we would most likely be reincarnated to be around our family/the other souls we like to travel with through eternity. I also like the idea of children seeking to be born to their family. So I would wonder if unborn children would be fewer than the number of pregnancies because maybe it would be just one or two souls looking for a chance to rejoin you in the physical world. I think if you met your children in the afterlife you would feel a sense of love. However souls commune. Babies in the womb do start to recognize aspects of their mother as they develop. Also, mothers apparently carry some fetal cells for life (fetal microchimerism). I can see there being amazing possibilities for recognition.

I wish you peace of mind and the reunion you seek.


The Catholic Church would likely say that since the miscarriages hadn't been baptized, they would be in hell. Or maybe they just go nowhere. Don't know. Best for you to ask a clergy person of your particular faith, as faiths vary as to where the unborn babies end up.

It's very simple for atheists, we just die, like Jews apparently do and like all other living things. Seems like no one worries about the dead animals, except maybe some dogs that they were attached to.


Please don't talk about things you don't know. Catholics believe in God's mercy and that leads to hope that the unborn will be welcomed by God in heaven. (Read: "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized" April 2007)

Was this after Vatican II? I was told they were in purgatory and was made to pray for them every day in Catholic school in the 70's.


NP. Since Vatican II was in the 1960's, then yes, it was after Vatican II.

The nun, who was my teacher, who told me this was old school. She also told me she was married to God, that girls should save themselves for marriage or they will burn in hell and that my left handness, if not corrected, would lead me to a life of thievery. I was 8.


I assume, and hope, that you are no longer Catholic

You assume correctly. The Church is cukty, imo, and protects pedos.
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2025 12:24     Subject: Re:What happens to unborn babies?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP, I am a Christian and here is how I view it:

In heaven/ the afterlife, there are no ages. Time is an earthly concept. It is our soul and spirit that is conceived by God in the womb and that is what remains in all eternity.

I do believe that we will meet loved ones in Heaven but they will not have ages (e.g. be unborn children) and neither will we.


Did you make up that belief yourself or is that part of some religion?


This is more or less the Christian philosophy.
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2025 12:06     Subject: What happens to unborn babies?
Everyone has a different thought.

In Islam, it's believed that a soul is breathed into a fetus at 120 days. Before then, it's not an individual. It's really just some cells.

So if something happens before 120 days, the "baby" goes nowhere, as there is no baby. After 120 days, it goes to heaven.