Years ago I did an informal study of the language associated with the debate over abortion.

At that time, forty years ago, both sides of the debate referred to “the contents of the uterus” as babies.

This is indicting.

In the 1970s we knew and articulated a simple fact:  the contents of the uterus during a pregnancy include at least one human being.

I say all of this because…

Socrates is immortal.

I know, seeming non-sequitur as well as a bit of a hijacked syllogism. But if you think about it, that is exactly what abortion apologetics is about–hijacked syllogisms.

Track with me here.

The original and better known Socratic syllogisms run like this:

1. All men are x

2. Socrates is a man

3. Therefore Socrates is x

X could be mortal, animal, sentient, mammalian…

You get the idea…

But what if men were immortal?  Then Socrates would be immortal.  His life would be defined by more than the hemlock, the sham trial, the bad marriage, the stopped heart.  He would be out there somewhere, forever, thinking, feeling, real forever.

So what does that have to do with the safety of abortion?

What if we substitute human fetus for Socrates or men?

1. All human fetuses are…

Half of all abortion patients die.  Those patients are the children of the other half of the patients.

Anyone who says abortion is safer than giving birth simply has the math terribly wrong.

Imagine if this math applied to all medical appointments: half of the people who went to the doctor on any day would not only not leave the clinic alive, they also could have their remains given to research concerns for money.

Still, what does that have to do with Socrates being immortal?

If Socrates is immortal

Then Someone or Thing has made him so.

A Word perhaps, an eternal Word.

Born into poverty, at risk of being the victim of infanticide, not because of who he was right then but because of who he would be…

Who they would be…the millions of would-be people.

Who like, Socrates, deserve true logic, not faulty syllogism.