Abortion Ban Passes South Dakota House

A 47-22 vote in South Dakota's House of Reps just passed a ban on abortion. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the mother, although there is an exception to protect the life of the mother. The bill will now go to the state Senate.

The full text of the bill can be found here.

The bill unambiguously violates Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and Stenberg v. Carhart. Obviously the state means to challenge those cases, in the hopes of overturning them. Which leads me to wonder whether South Dakota lawmakers know how to count. Alito + Roberts + Scalia + Thomas only equals four out of nine. Granted, it takes a couple of years to get a case up to the Supremes, and John Paul Stevens is very old, but he's not dead yet, and any confirmation battle over his replacement will be much, much more bloody with a direct challenge to Roe pending at the time.

Update: A quick search of South Dakota's web page shows that in the state Senate, Republicans outnumber Democrats 25-10. So it looks like Republicans have the numbers, although I have no idea whether they have the party cohesion. The governor is a Republican, and given that he has five kids (i.e. he's either Catholic or Mormon), I imagine he'll probably sign the bill.