Strange visitor from the Dark Ages gets elected to South Dakota state senate

"A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life." - South Dakota Republican state senator Bill Napoli explaining under what circumstances he'd allow a rape victim to get an abortion (via Shakespeare's Sister)

This is not about state's rights. If the Religious Right could ban abortion at the federal level they'd be more than willing to overstep state's rights, as they were in the Terry Schiavo case. What it is about is the desire to force their religious morality on everyone else. Napoli reflects a mindset where a woman is the property of her husband, where her body is not under her own control. It is no coincedence that women were not able to achieve an equal place in society until they were able to achieve reproductive freedom. This man, and this law, is reactionary in the worst sense of the word. It is an attempt to turn back the clock on a woman's right to control her own reproductive fate.