PIERRE - Gov. Mike Rounds, an abortion opponent, says he doubts the 2009 Legislature would pass an abortion ban like Initiated Measure 11, the one South Dakota voters defeated Tuesday.

"The Legislature takes a very cautious view about overturning something which has just been on the ballot," the Republican governor said in an interview. "I can't think of a time in which the Legislature stepped in and overturned or changed a law that the people just voted on."

Rounds, a Roman Catholic and a former state senator, said he was surprised the latest abortion ban, which contained limited exceptions, failed at the polls. The 55-45 percent margin is similar to that in 2006, when a stricter ban was defeated.

The governor said he thinks the current U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear it will modify the Jan. 22, 1973, Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion - but "not in a frontal attack."

"I think the message coming from the justices is one that says, "We will chip away at it slowly, but surely.'"

"I thought it may very well win this time, with the exceptions included."

Rounds said a good, hard look is needed at what can be done to eliminate abortions.

"I'd like to see them virtually all eliminated, and at the same time, if the reality is that we can't get a good vote on the elimination of abortion, then you do the next best thing, which is, you look at other alternatives to give people other options besides electing to take a voluntary abortion in order to end the life of a child," he said.

An exit poll conducted for The Associated Press indicated that about half the voters who call themselves moderates opposed the abortion ban by a 2 to 1 margin. Those who identified themselves as liberal voted against the ban, while conservatives supported it.

More than half the independent voters opposed the measure. About four in 10 voters consider themselves white evangelicals or born-again Christians, and most of them supported the proposed ban.