AUSTIN — Texas’ latest attempt to restrict abortions was struck down Wednesday, as a federal judge ruled banning a common procedure unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel wrote in his opinion that the state must prioritize women’s rights over a those of a fetus and that the proposed law would add an unnecessary medical procedure with no known benefit to the woman.

The regulations Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law in July would have required doctors to stop the heart of a fetus before removing it in an abortion.

“The Act establishes a point of fetal demise at a time before fetal viability,” Yeakel wrote. “In so doing, the Act does not further the health of the woman before the fetus is viable.”

Whole Woman’s Health and other groups sued over the portion of Senate Bill 8 that bans “dismemberment abortions,” a non-medical term that describes removing a fetus in the second trimester of a pregnancy without first stopping its heart. Medical professionals interpreted “dilation and evacuation” abortions, which are widely considered safe, to fall under the new law’s umbrella.

Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a notice of appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and said he would defend Senate Bill 8 at the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.

"During a five-day trial this month in district court, we created a record unlike any other in exposing the horrors of dismemberment abortions. No just society should tolerate the tearing of living human beings to pieces," Paxton said in a written statement. "Through extraordinary evidence and expert witness testimony, we established that Senate Bill 8 is lawful, treats the unborn with dignity and respect, and protects the integrity of the medical profession."

Janet Crepps, an attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead counsel on the case, said the plaintiffs are also prepared to potentially take the case to the Supreme Court.

"We wouldn't stop," she said. "We just have too much at stake for the women in Texas to stop without doing everything we can to keep the law from going into effect."

During the trial, witnesses and attorneys for Whole Woman’s Health said the law would have forced providers to stop performing second-trimester abortions.

Doctors testified that they have three methods of stopping a fetus’s heart before removing it: either with a digoxin or potassium chloride injection or by cutting the umbilical cord and letting the fetus bleed out. They said using injection methods later in pregnancy when the fetus is larger is safe for women, but not during dilation and evacuation abortions. None advocated cutting the umbilical cord to cause death because the cord is not always easily accessible.

The state argued that the law regulates the moment of death for fetuses and does not ban second-trimester abortions.

Crepps said she was disturbed by the state prioritizing fetal interests over women’s interests. In her arguments, she cited three Supreme Court decisions — Stenberg vs. Carhart, Gonzales vs. Carhart and Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstedt — that she said were key to laying the foundation of dilation and evacuation abortions’ constitutionality.

The state has a "hard road here,” Crepps said. “All the other courts that have looked at this have come out the same way, saying these laws are unconstitutional.”

In his opinion, Yeakel drew the conclusion that the Stenberg and Gonzales cases set a precedent against banning dilation and evacuation abortions. District courts exist to preserve constitutional rights, not search for a way to evade or lessen them, he wrote.

“Once the Supreme Court has defined the boundaries of a constitutional right, a district court may not redefine those boundaries,” he said in his opinion.

While doctors testifying for the plaintiffs said using injection methods to stop the fetus’s heart requires specialized training and skill, the state argued the techniques would be easy to learn. The state also focused on pain as a reason to require fetal demise. Doctors can’t prove fetuses feel pain, but they can’t disprove it, said Darren McCarty, a lawyer with the Texas attorney general’s office.

“If there’s a 5 percent chance or even a 1 percent chance, the state has an overwhelming interest in ensuring humane termination of fetal life,” McCarty said.

Crepps said she and the other lawyers representing Whole Woman’s Health have established concrete and onerous burdens that the law puts on women. Requiring fetal demise adds more time to the process, Crepps said, a potential complication for women who travel from out of town to get an abortion. She also said that adding a procedure creates unnecessary risk and that without a failsafe way to guarantee fetal death before an abortion, doctors could stop performing them.

“We feel like the law is on our side,” she said. “We feel like the facts are on our side.”

Texas has had its share of abortion-related court challenges. Last June in Whole Woman's Health vs. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court tossed out a 2013 law that required doctors who perform abortions to maintain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and abortions to take place in hospital-like surgical centers. More than half the clinics in Texas closed after the law went into effect.

Abortion providers did not challenge portions of the law that ban abortion after 20 weeks and regulate how doctors administer abortion-inducing pills.

This year's Senate Bill 8 also requires fetal remains from miscarriages and abortions to be buried or cremated, language from previous state regulations that a federal judge struck down. U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks ruled in January that the rules "likely are unconstitutionally vague and impose an undue burden on the right to an abortion." The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in June allowed Paxton to appeal Sparks' decision to block the rule. The legal challenge is still pending.