The first thing I saw when I approached Bama Students for Life’s billboard display was a man arguing with a woman, the latter near tears. As I listened, she explained that she had ancestors who had died in the Holocaust. She then told the man how offensive she found the display before walking away, visibly emotional.

I asked the man she was arguing with, the founder of BSL, what he thought about people who were offended by the parallels being drawn between abortion and the Holocaust.

“I think it’s funny to hear Jewish people object to us showing pictures of the Holocaust, because a few decades ago they were clamoring for these pictures to be released to the public,” he responded. He didn’t seem to understand why the analogy would seem tasteless to a pro-choice individual with connections to Holocaust victims.

My second noteworthy experience was a conversation with the vice president of BSL. We discussed the fact that the graphic protest was occurring coincidentally with an elementary school tour of the campus.

“What would you prefer?” she asked me. “That a born child see an image of abortion, or that unborn children continue to be killed by abortion?”

The third thing I saw that struck me was a poster claiming that abortion leads to breast cancer. This claim has been debunked by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as well as the U.S. National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, World Health Organization and more. When asked, a BSL associate gave me a pamphlet citing studies to the contrary, which included a 1978 study in the USSR.

To me, the entire protest was evocative of a fundamental flaw in the pro-life movement. That flaw is pro-life’s belief in its own moral infallibility.

Because organizations like BSL believe they are protecting the lives of infants, they believe they can justify using any means to accomplish their goals. For this reason, they are often willing to abandon honesty, taste, respect and prudence to fight abortion.

What BSL doesn’t understand is that to everyone who does not hold a strong opinion on abortion already, you are just another political activist group. And as of Wednesday, you are a political activist group that has disrespected Holocaust victims, put children at risk of being traumatized and lied about issues that affect the health of women.

Bama Students for Life, please listen. You may think that extremist methods are the only way to achieve your goals. However, you should know that Wednesday, you eroded the moral authority and credibility of your cause. You told everyone who was watching that you are willing to abandon your principles, even your sense of decency, if you think it will prevent an abortion.

And in the short term, yes, one or two impressionable people might carry their fetuses to term because you convinced them that they would get breast cancer or that abortion would make them like Hitler. But in the long term, you contributed to the gradual slide of your movement into a morass of incoherence and incredibility. You did things that made you, and your cause, weaker – both in terms of public perception and moral integrity.

The University of Alabama noticed this, Bama Students for Life. And we will remember.

Nathan James is a sophomore majoring in public relations. His column runs weekly on Thursdays.