Why Can't a "Baby" Fetus be Baptized


A controversial Face Book post says a stillborn baby cannot be baptized. Church officials say a still-born baby can be given a funeral, but a fetus cannot be baptized.

I'm going to assume this is correct. That a fetus cannot be baptized is inconsistent with the Catholic opinion that a fetus from the moment it is one fertilized cell is a "human being." If it is a human being, it has sinned and needs to receive the ritual of baptism. Apparently, there is on rule for "human beings" when they are one cell and another after they are born. This makes no sense. Either one cell is a human being, or it is not. 

This, of course, leave out the thousands of sperm cells swimming about in a male's body. No one knows, as far as I have read, some are not duplicates. But we all know when there are several children born to the same man and woman each child is different. They are not clones. This surely must mean the sperm cells and female eggs differ one from another. The "unique" characteristics of each human come from these differences, not when a unique DNA arrives.

That a baby can be given baptism after it is born but not as a fetus is another part of the hokum surrounding religion. It is full of decisions based on nothing but the opinions of ruling clergy at the time. 

My experience with all this goes back 50 years. A pediatrician in Fargo who specialized in teenaged girls was a staunch Republican but a staunch defender of abortion rights. She told me once way back that she called funeral homes to ask if they regularly were asked to hold funerals for fetuses from miscarriages. No funeral home had held such a service. My doctor friend then began to needle her right-to-life Republican friends about this. Soon, the Bishop at the time announced clergy were available to conduct such funerals. Apparently, there were a few after that. 

But baptism of healthy fetuses, this is not done. It is ridiculous the church can claim the status of human being for the fetus but not provide the most fundamental of rituals.

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