Theories: 1. One of Jacob's rules was that any child raised or born on the island is a candidate and cannot be killed by MIB, just as Jacob & MIB were both born on the island and could not kill each other. MIB seems to not be able to kill candidates but can convince others to do so (indirectly killing), as stated by Jack on the submarine. Juliet told Sun no woman makes it past the second trimester. That is when most women start to show, and MIB becomes aware of the pregnancy. He kills the mother, thus killing the child and prevents more candidates from being born on the island.
2. Sun would not have died if she had remained on the island while pregnant, because she was protected by her own candidate status. However she was not aware of her status and assumed she would die like other women, and therefore became an Oceanic 6 to leave the island to have her baby. That is why Claire was not killed either because she was also protected by her original candidate status, though her name was later crossed off. Same with Rousseau.
3. Juliet was wrong in her theory that women who conceive off the island are safe, and those who conceive on the island die. Their safety is connected to candidate status, which Juliet is not aware of.
4. The Others rounded up the children and took them from the Losties camps for this reason, on Jacob's orders (Ben referred to all the lists from Jacob).
5. Ben thought Alex was safe because of this rule, which is why he didn't think Widmore's freighter team would kill Alex when they threatened Ben to come out and surrender. That is why Ben told Widmore he broke the rules. That is also why BEn is so bitter against Jacob; it seems the rules are arbitrary and didn't protect him against Widmore. Ben wasn't aware the rule protected the children against MIB, not other humans. --Mollymagoo 05:35, May 26, 2010 (UTC)