Yesterday my family and I headed out to the North Dakota State Fair for the opening weekend. We hit the fairgrounds after a seemingly interminable parade, and somewhere on the grounds someone representing a pro-life group (there were a couple of different ones in the parade, which isn’t surprising given how high-profile the issue has become in the state) handed my five-year-old daughter a little rubber baby.

There are no markings on the thing, which looks like something out of a movie about aliens. No political message or URL. Just a creepy, squishy lump of skin-colored rubber.

We threw it a way, and we noticed a lot of the weird little creepies littering the garbage bins.

I’m about as pro-life as they come. From a scientific perspective, life begins at conception, and it amazes me how often that simple fact gets obscured in the abortion debate. But even an “extremist” (as our friends on the left are wont to call those who disagree with them) like me sees many of the tactics the pro-life right uses as counter-productive.

Let’s face it, there is a caricature of the pro-life activist that has been ingrained in the public’s consciousness by the media and entertainment industry, and it doesn’t do the pro-life movement any good when they prove themselves worthy of that caricature.

Whatever group is out there trying to promote the pro-life message by handing out squish alien babies, stop. You’re doing more harm than good.