Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

I recently came across an argument to the effect that abortion is not so bad, since the aborted babies go to heaven.

In that same discussion was the argument about God never violating our freewill and babies not having freewill to decide if they wanted to go to heaven, so would God take them to heaven without their consent?

(Some crazy stuff out there, eh?)

Say what you want about respecting someone's "freewill," (or "right to choose") but having the choice taken out of one's hands, a choice that is of such eternal consequence ... Well, it would be preferred if it was my life hanging in the balance.

Who in their right mind thinks it's better (for the individual) that God honor the creature's freewill and let him/her spend an eternity in hell than to intervene in such a way to change the creature's disposition?

Nobody would ever take that approach with a child, would they? "I'm going to let my children decide for themselves if they will walk in the street. I told him not to touch the hot stove, so I'll sit here and watch him do so as I honor his freewill."

Yank me back from walking in the street before the bus runs me over.

Knock my hand away before it touches the hot stove.

Back to the issue at hand ...

Always a touchy subject, I would suggest too that aborted babies in heaven is an assumption and not something that we can actually prove exegetically from the biblical text.

I know, some will try to give you 2 Sam 12, but that doesn't prove what some might have you think. It just proves David has resigned himself to the fact that God has done what he said and David will one day die and join the realm of the dead.

The Westminster Confession (X.III) makes the claim that elect infants dying in infancy are good to go. The beauty of that is that it's not all inclusive, but one can think that his/her baby is okay, with the assumption of being elect of God. Others may assume all babies are elect.

This gets into the issue of the alleged "age of accountability," whereby one is okay up to that point, but afterward can be damned. This may be an arbitrary age (e.g., 12), or dependent on the child (i.e., when he/she understands certain things).

If we're honest, I think we evangelicals have to say that we hope aborted babies go to heaven and we are confident the judge of all the earth will do right. We just can't presume that we know what right/good is and assume God has to do that.

The key is that depravity is such that God doesn't owe anyone a trip to heaven (not even babies who are depraved as the rest of us, just without the faculties to show such yet; that's part of personhood), nor does He owe anyone even the opportunity to hear the good news, which is the exit ramp on the highway to hell.

Still, I'm not advocating the murder of babies, but I find this interesting. Is the Houston mom who drowned her 5 kids responsible for sending them to heaven? If so, could she see herself as a hero who sacrificed her own temporal freedom on this planet for their eternal abode?

I'm not being facetious. Who wouldn't give their lives to prison if he/she could ensure an eternity in heaven with God for the children?

In the era of utilitarian religion and being part of the SBC where the most important thing of all is getting people saved and in an era of pragmatic righteousness (i.e., if it words, it's righteous, since you can't argue with results), isn't this something we need to be prepared to answer?

Think of those who say, "I don't want to bring a baby into this world." What if those same people thought, "Hmm. This is an unplanned pregnancy. I could (a) bring this baby into this evil world and go down my own personal road of great sacrifice and difficulties or (b) free myself of this problem and appease my conscience knowing that my baby will enjoy an eternity with God in heaven. What should I do?"

One responder to such a proposal said, "Yeah, but there wouldn't be any rewards for that baby, so his/her heaven wouldn't be that great."

I'll leave you to ponder the ineffectiveness of that response.

From that mom's standpoint, it's a risk-reward issue. The risk is that the baby could grow up, not believe in Jesus, and spend an eternity in hell. The potential reward is that the baby could believe in Jesus, do some good works, and then not have to live in heaven's ghetto.

I said all that to say this ...

If the abortion industry in the country puts 1.5 million in heaven each year, does that lessen or heighten the motivation to stop it?

Or, to ask it another way, if people were convinced abortions were sending babies to hell without any chance to hear the Gospel and be saved, would their efforts look different?

Either way, abortion is murder, and evil. Abortions populating heaven wouldn't make evil good, since the ends don't justify the means, but I wonder if this lessens the heinous nature of the act for some.

God can use evil for good and always does in the life of the Christian (Rom 8:28), but I wonder what the practical/ethical considerations are in this regard.

Caveat: For the record I am in no way tolerant of abortion, taking a hardline position in not even being on board in cases of "rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother."