Do aborted babies go to Heaven or Hell?

For millions of people, to acknowledge the humanity of the preborn child is to experience genuine remorse over abortion. It creates a thirst to know if and how God can forgive. And it leads to a question, asked with a blood-earnest sincerity, “What happened to my baby?”

It’s often the first question I’m asked when teaching in countries plagued by abortion and a part of most people’s experience. The answer within various traditions of orthodox Christianity spans from Heaven and Hell, to somewhere in between (limbo). Nowhere does the Bible address this question directly and explicitly. My answer begins with what the Bible makes clear about the eternal destiny of all people and then adds what the Bible infers about babies who die.

Explicitly, each of us is hand-made, by God’s direct and personal craftsmanship. David’s first pro-life action was worship! “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:13-14). This wonder points to the special dignity and value — intrinsic, equal, exceptional and eternal value endowed to each of us, being made in God’s image, (Genesis 1:26-27).

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This, in turn, explains why God treasures human life, protects it through his moral law and is justly angered at the intentional killing of innocent people. All sin, including the shedding of innocent blood, is an expression of breaking faith and defying an eternally good God (Romans 14:23). All of us face the just penalty. The “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). But the saving gift of God is Christ. We may wholly rely on his death as our own — full punishment paid for the full punishment due, even for the sins we are most ashamed of (1 Cor 15:3). This is the one glorious way God has provided for all who regret their sins to be forgiven and come clean into God’s presence and peace (John 14:6).

Where does this leave those who are developmentally unable to trust Christ for the forgiveness of sins? What does the Bible teach us about the eternal destiny of our babies who die from abortion or other causes?  

The Bible does not state, but everywhere implies, that children who die are with God in Heaven. We do not see in Scripture an explanation of how the saving work of Christ applies to these little ones. But it must. For it is inferred in multiple places that they are with the Father.

First, infants and children appear in Scripture as belonging to God in an intimate, fatherly way. In denouncing the moral horror of intentionally killing an innocent baby, God says, “You slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire” (Ezekiel 16:21-22). God calls them “innocents” (Jer 19:4). This does not mean they are without a sinful nature. But it does acknowledge that they have not matured enough to be judged as moral agents. Developmentally, they have “no knowledge of good and evil” (Dt 1:39). Further, in Matthew 18:3-5, Jesus uses children as the very example of faith in God. “Unless you are converted and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Children, as symbols of saving faith, make no sense if children are punished with damnation.

Second, Job and others speak of the rest experienced by babies who die. Deep in the pain of his sufferings, Job lamented, “Why was I not as a hidden stillborn child, as infants who never see the light?” (3:16). Had he died as an unborn child, Job reasons, he would be in a place where “the weary find rest” (3:17). There is nothing restful about hell. Rest points to being with God and enjoying him forever.

Third, when David’s infant son was sick, David mourned, fasted and prayed that God would spare him. After the child died, David dressed and stopped mourning. Those around him thought he should wail and lament. David defended his actions with a statement of hope that implies heavenly rest for his child and a future reunion with him: “I’ll go to him, but he will never return to me” (2 Sam 12:23).

Finally, Scripture teaches that God’s judgment is administered on the basis of sins consciously committed. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor 5:10). Jesus said such actions include, “evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19). All these and more reflect an unrepentant rejection of God as Lord. But of course, an embryo, a preborn child or an infant, while human, has not done anything good or evil that could be judged, due to their moral immaturity.

If the unborn and the infant do not sin in the sense of choosing evil and rejecting the good, why do they die at all? Infants die, like all people, because we have a sinful nature. Paul writes, “Just as sin came into the world through one man, [Adam] and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned [in Adam]” (Romans 5:12).

While mysteries remain, I conclude that babies are among the “loved by God, that he has chosen” (1 Thessalonians 1: 4) and are with him now. There are no verses that imply the opposite. Further, they will receive glorified bodies when all the redeemed receive one. A baby who dies as an embryo or infant is not stuck being a baby in Heaven any more than a blind man is stuck being blind or a 100-year-old will still need a cane. Therefore, let your regret yield to faith in God. Trust that your babies are with the Lord and with perfect understanding, enjoying him, as you will come to see.