I think there may have been a post about this a while ago but can't seem to find it so...

Here's my problem. Suppose someone-Jewish, nonJewish, whatever-does get an abortion. Their unborn child is, for all purposes, dead.

What I don't understand is-what does everyone think God does with that soul? Going along with the reasoning that all souls have a purpose in this world, some unknown job to complete-doesn't God just take the kid's soul and put it into another woman somewhere, so he can fulfill his purpose? And if this is true, then what's the big deal about abortion-true, the baby's dead for now, but what, god just says oh sorry kid, your mother didnt want you, and throws him in the trash pile? I doubt it.
So, any thoughts on the subject? I am thoroughly confused. All help will be appreciated.

Well as you said, the kid did nothing wrong. G-d is upset at the supposed to be mother (Depending on your views and interpretations) and therefore the baby is not to be punished. As for the soul I believe most people say that it ends up in a different womb or is just never born (Which in reality is easier on that soul in the long run). Listen I've got no degree in this kinda stuff but I guess that just makes me all the more un-biased on this touchy subject.

Im not an expert but i do have thoughts :P
Most peoples problem with abortion is that it is murder. The baby may be "unborn" but it is alive. So the baby isnt techniqually dieing, its being killed. What happens with the souls, i think, is less of the issue when it comes to abortion because we can't really know what happens to them. Say a baby dies of illness. does god give them a second chance too? surely they weren't given a fair chance to fulfill their purpose. I guess we can't really know. what we do know is that life is a very valuable thing. Its not something you want to lose, and not something you want taken from you. I myself am unsure when it comes to religion. I cant seem to shake the feeling of uncertainty that comes with death. Nor do i feel secure that god will carry my soul on to heaven. All i see is this life i have now. People feel protective when it comes to abortion because the baby doesnt have a say whether it lives or not. I know i would want to have my say.

This could go with the question of why children die.

My mom's co-worker lost her son when he was just three. I bet his "job" (if there was one) was not fulfilled.

If everything happens for a reason, and God wants the children to come back to him, then maybe that baby wasn't supposed to be born?

this is a hassidic story, if you don't like hassidic stories, stop reading now, if you do (or don't know what a hassidic story is) please read on...
there was once a woman who had been happily married for many years but she and her husband had been unable to have children, finally after years of prayers they conceived, the local doctors were astounded. they had a baby boy which the couple loved deeply, when the baby was 5 he contracted a rare disease and unfortunately passed away. the parents were devastated, but after a few months, through the support of their community they started to move on with their lives, but the mother could never fullly let go. Why would God give her a child only to rip it away from her? After several more years her husband passed on and the night after she completed "shiva" she was visited by her husband in a dream, he invited her into a huge hall of people who were sitting around a man who was glowing more than anyone else in the crowded room, her husband sat down next to the man, the glowing man smiled familiarly at the woman and begin teaching Torah to the group who listen intently, it was the most wonderful Torah she had ever heard, when the lecture was over her husband walked over to her and explained, "this man is our son, he had previously lived a long life he was a Torah scholar and a great Rabbi, destined to reach the highest levels in the World to Come, but when he passed away he had just one thing keeping him from being places on the highests of highs, he had been seperated from his parents as an infant and was nursed by a non-jewish woman. God heard our prayers and gave you and i the "zechus", merit to be the couple chosen to nurse this child, giving him the one last piece he needed to get the highest reward in the World to Come."

the point is God knows whats going on, He's been doing this for a long time, and He is after all infinite, we don't all get visited in dreams but the ideal is that we have faith that is so strong that when tragedy strikes it is as if we could see behind the curtain.

I don't know what happens the souls of the children whose mother's get abortions, but i do know that God is taking care of all of it. All we can do is recognize how much God does for us and be appreciative.

So. That helped a little. I asked around and most rabbis seem to tell me that since we don't know what happens to the souls, we can't go and make "cheshbonot"-calculations, that it doesn't matter if the baby is killed, because his soul will come down anyway etc.

dance hall drug-i think you're touching on the topic of bechira-free will-and all its complications. if something happens then obviously god knew it would and wanted it to. But-why would god create a soul that isn't meant to come down to earth, what would be the point?

To lead this down another road, sort of on the topic of free will-what about DNR's? Why would someone be allowed to have one, and why, if the person is technically dead, does it matter if he has a dnr? If god wanted him to live, god would've made him live.
Hope I'm not confusing anyone too bad

well what if G-d specifically wants him to be brain-dead? keep in mind that we LITERALLY havent the faintest grasp on how G-d's will works in this world.

if we'd ask "why would G-d ever want that?" there are two directions that combine into the answer. firstly we'd have to realize that even if we cant fathom any half-decent reason for G-d to do something like that, it does not mean that He is acting unjust; G-d cannot act unjustly; we just cant see iit sometimes. its kind of like when a 2 year old awnts a candy and his mother doesnt allow him to have it- the baby has no idea why not, yet the parent simply has higher experience level and knowledge, and is truly objectively acting justly.

the second direction to answer, accepting the fact that G-d does things completely for the purpose of helping us grow, is that nothing that can happen in this world completely lacks some possible positive gain from it. there're infinite examples in this (and any case), but ill rattle a few off i can think of. if ones relative (G-d forbid) goes into a brain-dead state, s/he can maybe appreciate his/her family more as a result. is it a tragety? absolutely. but everything in this world-even trageties- has something positive to gain from it.

yeahhh I never really understood that whole concept of "god can do no evil" (this is going bit off topic but its my post so whatever)
just because someone gains something from a relative's death doesn't make it any less bad. some things are just plain bad. there is no way anyone's gonna convince me that cancer or terrorism or war etc. is inherently good just because god did it.
[all my religious teachers were into this idea which is why I may be slightly over-reacting here, sorry]

even if something good comes out of it, that was the person's choice, their decision to learn a lesson or change themselves b/c of a bad situation. that wasn't god's goodness, it was ours.

dhd if you're reading this, can you tell me where I can find some research on that idea you mentioned in a different post, about god and how some forces exited before and without him....thanks.

Re: Your first 2 paragraphs. Check out Maimonide's (Jewish) and Augustine's (Christian) ideas on evil in Guide of the Perplexed and Confessions (respectively). These two guys take philosophical points of views to better understand religious questions.

Maimonides believes that evil is relative to the individual. Augustine believes that evil is when things are at variance with each other. They both believe that evil is a lack of good. Evil doesn't exist, but since we are imperfect images, then we are able to lack good (decay).

They also believe that moral evil is a decay in our free will. Augustine believes that we were created with a completely good free will, but our free will became corrupt (think Garden of Eden corruption - knowledge/understanding of good and evil) and allows us to make poor moral decisions. Maimonides believes that our moral evil comes from ignorance. If we knew that something was "evil" then we wouldn't do it.

As for the forces that exist before God, that's Plato. He believes that there is the Good, the forms, and then a God called the Demiurge that creates the world based on those forms and the Good (which is the ultimate form - everything aspires to be like the good and we all are made to be like the good).

So yeah. You can read more about Augustine & Maimonides in Confessions and Guide of the Perplexed and Plato in The Republic.

If you were an entity that for some reason created human life with the ultimate purpose of having them recognize your existence; but you couldn't make it too easy, the decision had to be possible but not overbearingly obvious, (i.e. a choice) thus your relationship to this world would have to be shrouded, but without implanting the idea into the world how could you expect anyone to just figure it out, you thus chose a small group of people to give the true mission of the world to, the group had to be small enough that they would always be the minority (to maintain the integrity of the choice) and yet eternal; once you put yourself into God's proverbial shoes it becomes a lot easier to understand Him, not that we ever fully could but it helps to know the context.
Another method of looking at this issue is from the classic paradigm of father and child, if a young child is caught red handed taking cookies from the cookie jar there are (for our purposes) two potential parental reactions, the first is to explain to the 6 yr old how if he/she eats to many cookies he will develop bad eating habits, ruin his teeth possibly become overweight all of which could make his life fairly uncomfortable when he reaches the age of 40 or so. obviously this is not a logical way to deal with the situation, a far more logical way to teach a young child without long term reasoning not to do something that he doesn't realize is bad for him is to punish him, thus the second option might be withholding desert from dinner, or dinner all together, when the child goes to bed with a little grumble in his stomach he will be upset but with the proper context it is obvious that there is long term benefit. I think this is the idea that your teachers were attempting to get across.
I understand that its hard to see the good in it, i certainly don't always but one of the tests of maturity is to realize that its not all about what I'm feeling right this instant, and things are beyond my comprehension