# What happens to the soul of a fetus? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2005, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298 "2005-08-09T17:20:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298/41 "2005-08-10T23:52:13Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > No, but most of those religions which say that newborn infants have souls also say that, if they die, they’ll go to heaven/paradise/etc… just like those people who believe that fetuses have souls, but that if they die, they’ll go to heaven/paradise/etc. Eh, I’ve always filed those under “religious copouts,” on the level of “people who have never heard of God are not condemned to Hell,” just to make the religion sound less cold-blooded. And my informal survey of the responses in this thread indicate that more people subscribe to the “fetuses don’t have souls to lose” than the “fetuses get an automatic entry into Heaven” theory, which would make killing a week-old baby different from aborting a week-old fetus. (Then again, I don’t believe in any of this soul stuff anyway, so this is all just me speculatin’ here. 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298/42 "2005-08-11T00:09:36Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > Given that nobody has suggested a horrible/undesirable fate for the soul of an aborted fetus, does that mean that there are no negative spiritual consequences to abortion? If so, doesn’t that mean that the anti-abortionists don’t have a spiritual leg to stand on? That doesn’t make sense to me. If I kill you and you go to heaven, that’s not a horrible/undesirable fate. But killing you is still wrong. I’m not anti-abortion, but I think the idea of the religious anti-abortionists is that they believe (1) a fetus has a soul, and (2) any being with a soul has a right to life. What happens to the soul is immaterial. Personally, I (1) can’t see any convincing Biblical support for the claim that a fetus has a soul (I posted on this recently, and all of the verses posted in response seemed _very_ open to interpretation), (2) don’t agree with making laws based soley on the claim that “this is what it says in my religion,” and (3) don’t think it would be very logical for an prescient God to create a soul for a fetus _knowing_ that particular fetus is going to be aborted. But of course that’s just my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298/43 "2005-08-11T11:08:11Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > [pointless hijack]Some organisms live entirely without depending on others dying; I’m thinking about bacteria that metabolise naturally-occuring minerals, so the point is sort of moot, unless bacteria have souls. A soul and life are the same thing I have never seen any proof of it being anything else. In Genesis, The punishment for sin was death, no mention of loss of soul, that became a way of thinking at a later time in history. If humans have soul(Life) then so does bacteria. Humans like to think they are a higher life form than others because their brain is advanced to a different level,but if one believes that man was created from the dust of the earth, animals etc., were brought forth by the word of God and would be of a higher substance. Even at most funerals the ministers, or priests say"Man you are but dust and to dust you shall return."Actually almost the same as science for we return to where we came from eons ago. Monavis ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298/44 "2005-08-11T11:12:57Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > Well, we do have to draw a line somewhere. Life beginning at conception, I think, as should be clear from my post above, is pretty silly. Life beginning at implantation? More reasonable. But conception is a necessary prerequisite for implantation, so you could argue the life-at-conception position. Of course, the sexual act is (usually) a prerequisite for conception, so perhaps we should say that life begins at penetration. (I know it does for me, anyway.) But then, coitus cannot cause pregnancy if the female has not entered puberty and achieved fertility. Thus we move backward, to life beginning, hypothetically, at menstruation. > > The only thing this line of debate proves, in my mind, is that the whole question is basically stupid. Life should not be the debate, but personhood. The life of the father and mother is combined to produce a child through sperm and egg. One could say a lot of human lives die so one sperm can make it to the egg. It is the fittest sperm that wins the race, so one could say we start out life a winner. MONAVIS ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298/45 "2005-08-11T16:46:32Z")
> [@JerH](#): > > If you’re Catholic…while the Church used to say that unbaptized babies (a category that would include the unborn in their ethics) ended up in Limbo, they’ve long since moderated that viewpoint. They now say that they don’t know but that God takes care of them. > > As for my belief - I think the souls go to Pittsburgh. I don’t remember reading this in the Bible. What verse is it in? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298/46 "2005-08-11T17:13:09Z")
> [@ouryL](#): > > I don’t remember reading this in the Bible. What verse is it in? It’s not. The Catholic Church relies on the wisdom and interpretation of it’s holy men, most notably the Bishops and Pope, and it’s adherants are not biblical literalists. According to [Wikipedia,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo) “The existence of the Limbo of Children is highly doubted in today’s Church. Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), touched on the issue when speaking about the victims of abortion. He said that the church does not know the fate of unbaptized infants, but advised Roman Catholics to trust in God’s mercy and love.” The full text of the Evangelium Vitae can be found [here,](http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0141/_INDEX.HTM) but frankly, I’m too lazy to read it. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298/47 "2005-08-11T17:14:27Z")
Good Lord, I apologize deeply for the apostrophe abuse in that post. _Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa._ ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298/48 "2005-08-11T20:20:44Z")
> [@pand](#): > > If the soul does not exist without the body, there is no afterlife. Depends what you mean by a body. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298/49 "2005-08-12T06:39:08Z")
> [@sixball](#): > > If a fetus is aborted, what becomes of its soul? Without having been born, is it without sin? What’s scary is that by your implication is if a baby was born and lived 5 minutes and was unbaptized, that the little baby would go to Hell (or at least Limbo). In the Middle Ages, this sort of thinking led to the development of a device (similar to an oil can) containing holy water to baptize a baby in the birth canal during a problem birth. I never had my daughter baptized believing that it would be her choice eventually (which is how baptism was originally). She died when she was three. If God were so unloving as to keep her out of heaven because of something she had no control over, then I’m turning Pagan. -Saint Cad ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298/50 "2005-08-12T09:55:35Z")
I do not mean to hijack the OP so I hope this is not,but I just read of a 13 year old frozen embryo that was one of triplets being born,She is now 13 years younger than her triplet sisters and I wondered if her soul was frozen for 13 years,or if God was waiting for the embryo to be implanted before he stuck the soul into her body, or if indeed her life and soul was the same thing? Any Ideas? I would imagine the embryo would be no different life than the Fetus, just a more advanced stage toward personhood. Monavis ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298/51 "2005-08-12T10:25:56Z")
The body starts from more or less nothing and grows/develops over a span of time, the intellect does the same; I see no reason to suspect that the soul (assuming such exists) does not also do likewise. “When does a human acquire a soul?” is like asking “when does a human become a person?”. Not at any specific instant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-the-soul-of-a-fetus/316298.md?page=2)