Question: According to the Scriptures, are stillborn human fetuses promised a resurrection awakening?

Answer: Human embryos and fetuses are regarded by the Scriptures as being a part of the mother and not as living souls until they draw breathe after they are born or taken from the mother. Stillborn fetuses are therefore not souls and therefore will not be awakened from the dead.

That the stillborn will not be raised from the dead seems to be clearly shown by Job’s statement in Job 10: 18, 19: “Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.”

Thus, Job’s life as a soul, as an individual, began at birth, when he was brought forth from the womb. But this passage shows that if as a fetus he had not drawn breathe, no eye would have seen him as a soul. If the fetus had been stillborn, and it had been carried from the womb to the grave, he would have been as though he had not been (Obadiah 16). He would have been as though he had never existed, one who had never become a soul, which can only be done by drawing breathe, which begins after birth.

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