A federal judge has struck down Alabama's one-of-a-kind law that enabled judges to put minors seeking abortions through a trial-like proceeding in which the fetus could get a lawyer and prosecutors could object to the pregnant girl's wishes.

Alabama legislators in 2014 changed the state's process for girls who can't or won't get their parents' permission for an abortion to obtain permission from a court instead. The new law empowered the judge to appoint a guardian ad litem "for the interests of the unborn child" and invited the local district attorney to call witnesses and question the girl to determine whether she's mature enough to decide.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Russ Walker sided Friday with the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama , writing that the law unconstitutionally and impermissibly imposes "an undue burden on a minor in Alabama who seeks an abortion through a judicial bypass," and violates the girl's confidentiality by potentially bringing other people from her life into the process.

Walker noted in a footnote of the ruling that, under the law, a girl seeking court permission for an abortion in Alabama could face both a lawyer for the fetus and "the chief prosecuting authority of the county in which the minor resides, empowered by the act to represent the state's public policy to protect unborn life, and backed by substantial state resources."