Last week the governor of South Dakota, Mike Rounds, signed a bill that banned all abortions in the state. The bill would make it a crime for any doctor to perform an abortion unless it was necessary to save the woman’s life.There is no exception for cases of incest or rape.

The bill has set a precedent against Roe V. Wade, the 1973 decision handed down by the Supreme Court legalizing abortion in all states. Rounds even said that the bill was a direct challenge.

It should also be noted that the bill was approved by the Legislature first with bi-partisan sponsorship and strong support from both houses.

And it’s all part of an effort by abortion opponents to push a more conservative Supreme Court to eventually reverse the Roe decision.

The governor says that the state has assistance, medically and economically, for mothers who need it in caring for their child.

How the state is going to care for a 13-year-old who was raped by her father and is now forced to carry his child is beyond me. $200 a week just isn’t going to cut it.

A woman should never have to carry a baby that was forced on her by a rapist or a family member. Anyone with even the slightest bit of compassion should be able to understand that.

But that’s almost beside the point.

The real issue here isn’t whether or not abortion is inherently right or wrong, it’s whether taking a woman’s right to choose away from her is right or wrong.

How anyone can say its right to do so blows my mind.

The vast majority of South Dakota’s House is men. Not surprising, considering most states are the same.

But this is not an issue for men. There are women in the House and some even sponsored the bill but not enough. While saying an issue like abortion should be excluded from vote by the House is ridiculous -of course it has to be voted on by them-but it should irk people that a right-to-choose issue is being decided on mainly by a large group of middle-aged men and that there is no other way to do this..

The sense that this isn’t making should be pounding itself into everyone’s heads.

And the scariest part is that in a few years, maybe even less, this decision could have an impact on the entire country.

Rounds wrote in his statement on the signing of the bill that “in the history of the world, the true test of a civilization is how well people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society.”

This may be true, but the true test of a man is how well he cares for his own, his women and his children. And for a governor and a state’s House, that test remains the same. They must represent and take care of their own.

By signing Bill 1215, the South Dakota Governor and House have misrepresented their people and stripped a right away from women that men, even a government, should have no right taking away: the right to choose.

In doing so, they have not only failed their test, but also their state.