Does Jesus’ Proclamation In John 3:5 About Being “Reborn” Apply To Babies In The Womb?

In John 3, Jesus proclaimed that everyone must be reborn of water and the Spirit to be saved.  The Catholic Church teaches that these words are a dogma without exception. 

Pope Eugene IV, The Council of Florence, “Exultate Deo,” Nov. 22, 1439: “Holy baptism, which is the gateway to the spiritual life, holds the first place among all the sacraments; through it we are made members of Christ and of the body of the Church.  And since death entered the universe through the first man, ‘unless we are born again of water and the Spirit, we cannot,’ as the Truth says, ‘enter into the kingdom of heaven’ [John 3:5].  The matter of this sacrament is real and natural water.”

Pope Paul III, Council of Trent, Sess. 5, Can. 4, On Original Sin: “By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death... so that in them there may be washed away by regeneration, what they have contracted by generation, ‘For unless a man is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God’ [John 3:5].”

Some people, including certain non-Catholics, object that this proclamation of Jesus does not exclude babies who die in the womb of their mother from salvation because Jesus' statement about “rebirth” only applies to people who have been born the first time, and children in the womb have not yet been born.  However, that objection is refuted by recognizing that, in the New Testament, the Greek verb γεννάω (gennaō) – which carries the meanings of “to beget”, “to bring forth” and “to be born” – is used to refer both to children in the womb and to children who have come forth from the womb.  This is proven by Matthew 1:20, which uses the word γεννηθὲν (a passive participle of the verb γεννάω) to refer to Our Lord who was still in the womb of Our Lady.

Matthew 1:20 “But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is born [conceived/ γεννηθὲν] in her is from the Holy Spirit.’”

Yet, the same verb is used in various places of the New Testament to refer to children who have come forth from the wombs of their mothers (e.g Matthew 2:1; Acts 7:20; etc.).  So, according to the New Testament, every child conceived and vivified by a soul, whether inside or outside the womb, has been “born” in that sense and will not be saved unless it is reborn of water and the Spirit. However, baptism is not to be performed until a child comes forth from the womb of the mother.