South Dakota lawmakers Wednesday approved the most restrictive abortion law of any in the nation and likely set the stage for new legal challenges the law’s supporters hope will lead to an overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The measure, which passed the state Senate 23 to 12, makes it a felony for doctors to perform any abortion, except to save the life of a pregnant woman. The proposal still must be signed by Republican Gov. Mike Rounds, who is anti-abortion.

Rep. Roger Hunt, a sponsor of the bill, said momentum is building for a change in national policy on abortion.

In fact, the bill was reportedly designed specifically to challenge the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe. That decision, rendered in 1973, recognized a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancies.

“The momentum for a change in the national policy on abortion is going to come in the not-too-distant future,” said Hunt, a Republican.

The bill is so restrictive, in fact, that its supporters were successful in defeating all amendments designed to mitigate the ban including  exceptions in the case of rape or incest or the health of the woman. Hunt said that such “special circumstances” would have diluted the bill and its impact on the national scene.

The Washington Post has more:

Hunt has also said that when the inevitable challenge to the ban is filed in court, the ban’s supporters will be prepared for a costly court fight with $1 million already pledged by “an anonymous donor.”

Even without this latest ban, South Dakota was already one of the most difficult states in the country in which to get an abortion, those on both sides of the issue say. It is one of three states with only one abortion provider (Mississippi and North Dakota are the others), and its one clinic, the Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, offers the procedure only once a week. Four doctors who fly in from Minnesota on a rotating basis perform the abortions, since no doctor in South Dakota will do so because of the heavy stigma attached.

About 800 abortions are performed each year in South Dakota, which has a population of 770,000 spread out over 77,000 square miles. Last year, South Dakota passed five laws to restrict abortions, including one that would compel doctors to tell women that they would be ending the life of a “whole, separate, unique human being.” That law has been blocked by a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood.