Napoli entered the spotlight by virtue of several public statements he made regarding the
legislation H.B. 1215, enacted in 2006, to limit
abortion access in
South Dakota to those cases in which the woman's life would be in danger, possibly anticipating or inviting a repudiation of
Roe v. Wade by the
Roberts Court. Among his statements were, "When I was growing up here in the wild west, if a young man got a girl pregnant out of wedlock, they got married, and the whole darned neighborhood was involved in that wedding. I mean, you just didn't allow that sort of thing to happen, you know? I mean, they wanted that child to be brought up in a home with two parents, you know, that whole story. And so I happen to believe that can happen again." Asked about a possible exception to that rule, Napoli replied, "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."
Reactions to Napoli's comments A
comic strip commenting on Napoli's vote appeared in the
webcomic Minimum Security on March 22, 2006. It included his office and home telephone numbers, thus prompting calls, some of which were abusive. In Napoli's words, "99% percent of the calls I got were just filth. I bet I didn't talk to 20 or 25 people I could talk to. The rest were screaming obscenities before I could hang up." The
cartoonist, Stephanie McMillan, auctioned the original cartoon on
eBay for US$2,201.00 and donated all of the money to
pro-choice causes. One half was given to
Planned Parenthood of
Minnesota,
North Dakota and South Dakota, and the other half to the
Oglala Sioux tribe, because the former tribal president
Cecilia Fire Thunder had planned on opening an
abortion clinic on the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. in an attempt to popularize a
neologism of his last name as something undesirable, much like
Dan Savage's reaction in his column
"Savage Love" to
Rick Santorum's remarks about homosexuality. In early April 2006, his senate webpage was also the subject of a Google bomb for the term "sexist asshat". ==References==