Hyerim Bianca Nam is a junior at Yale University and a writer for the Yale Daily News. She’s also a leftist. Mix those two things together, and you get someone who writes a post that literally says it is impossible to debate pro-Lifers because they’re too darned polite. Unspoken, is what Nam implies should be done with people like them.

The opening paragraph in her “Abort the Conversation” article revels in the fact that humans are capable of logic. In her ideal world, she envisions reciprocal, respectful exchange as the hallmark of civilization.

However, there’s a serpent in this garden: “Sometimes, though, the debate can be the problem itself. Some arguments aren’t worth engaging with, and quite frankly are dangerous for even existing.” Nam had this last thought reinforced when she spoke with a high school student:

One interviewee made a statement about how prejudiced people could be re-educated through logical debates that could convince them that their views were wrong, and I could tell that they genuinely had faith in the power of rational thinking.

Image: Yale University at Twilight (which seems like a fitting metaphor) by Namkota. CC BY-SA 4.0.

I think this is what Nam is trying to say: The high school student said that it’s possible, through logical debate, to break down people’s prejudices. Nam, hearing this, believed that the high schooler spoke in good faith. She implies, however, that the student is misguided and, as proof, points to the horrors of dealing with members of Yale’s pro-life club.

For Nam, the real horror of those pro-life students was that they were…polite and respectful:

One of the angriest moments I’ve had at Yale was last year’s Bulldog Days, when I saw a table on cross campus that was manned by members of a pro-life club. Grouped around the table, which was spread with sonograms and fetal diagrams, the students were inviting passersby to engage in logical debates about fetal personhood and abortion ethics. They were polite. They held their voices low and spoke slowly and calmly. They had relaxed, open smiles.

“Would you like to discuss this? Let’s talk about it respectfully,” they insisted. “We can debate about this.” Their smug civility was infuriating; their invitations for debate, inflammatory. I could barely seethe [sic] out my opinion about the misogyny of holding such a debate at all; simpering, the male students gestured to the only female student with them. Their wide, innocent eyes asked the unspoken question: how could they possibly be misogynist when one of their club members was a woman?

Worse, this took place immediately after the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Dobbs, returning the issue of abortion to the states. This whole fake respect obscured what was to Nam the real issue which is not worthy of debate:

I regret talking with them. I should not have entered such a space and entertained such discourse; to bring the legality of abortion into question, then frame the debate around whether and when a fetus became a person was a red herring, a false path meant to distract someone from the true issue and its massive repercussions for bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. The discussion never should have been entertained, because simply opening space for this “logical, respectful” debate itself is a threat to human rights that should never be up for debate.

But for Nam, the issue isn’t abortion, because she already knows the answer to that one, so the debate is over. Instead, she writes, she has learned “to realize the futility of logical debate.” No wise young leftist should ever again waste time talking about immigration with elderly relatives at Thanksgiving or have discussions in the common room “when the friend shares harmful opinions and invites discussion….” When it comes to “prejudiced, ignorant people,” give up on logical debate, says Nam. “I’m telling you, it’s not worth it.” Instead, “Abort the conversation.”

Aside from the terrible writing, there are some truly terrible ideas in here. Nam has essentially said that Pro-life students are the equivalent of polite Nazis seeking to put women in the “concentration camp of pregnancy,” and one never debates Nazis because doing so validates their very existence. The same is true for any ideas with which she disagrees.

Hiding behind Nam’s sinister decision to silo as untouchable any ideas with which she disagrees is one even more sinister: If you cannot persuade people in a representative democracy, there is only one way to move the political dial, and that’s through force. So, summed up, if you disagree with Nam, you are irredeemably evil, you are not worthy of debate, and you will eventually be dealt with through other means.

By the way, the total cost for a year at Yale is around $82,000. It is widely considered to be one of America’s best Universities.