Cobb County Acting District Attorney John Melvin said Friday that women cannot be prosecuted under Georgia's new abortion ban, but doctors can, and that Democratic prosecutors who say they are not going to enforce the law are like Nazis and Bull Connor.

The comparison of his Democratic colleagues to the Jim Crow South and Hitler's Germany comes from Melvin's view that all have denied someone's personhood. Bull Connor and other racist law enforcement officers of the brutal segregated South denied personhood to African Americans they abused, jailed and lynched. The Nazis denied personhood to the millions of Jews they murdered. And those who have said publicly in recent days that they will not make criminal cases under the new abortion law are denying the personhood of embryos and fetuses bestowed by House Bill 481, Melvin said.

Melvin advanced those ideas and more in an article published Friday on the Merion West.com website.

He confirmed his authorship of the article and the views expressed there in a conversation with the Daily Report Friday.

“I'm very pro life,” Melvin said. He said he supports the new law but that a DA's job is to enforce all laws, regardless of personal convictions.

As for the Republican DA who told the Daily Report this week he believes women could be prosecuted for murder under the new law—Douglas County District Attorney Ryan Leonard—Melvin simply disagreed. “That's unfortunate,” Melvin said. “I think he's wrong.”

Melvin's reasoning for whether a murder case can be made against a woman who has an abortion comes down to the difference between the word “a” and the word “another.”

Melvin told the Daily Report that Georgia's murder statute makes it unlawful to take the life of “another human being.” Melvin interprets that to mean a “viable” human being. So a fetus would not be covered. However, Melvin said a fetus would be covered if the murder statute said “a human being” instead of “another human being.”

Melvin said he thinks the law is clear that doctors can be prosecuted under the new law, but not for murder. He said the guiding rule would be Georgia's already existing unlawful abortion statute, which could allow up to 10 years in prison.

The law makes an embryo a “human being” and bans nearly all abortions from the point that medical professionals can detect an embryonic pulse, which can be as soon as six weeks into pregnancy. Supporters call the legislation a “heartbeat bill.” Opponents say the name is misleading because a heart is not yet formed in the pea-sized embryo. Pro-choice advocacy groups have challenged similar laws in other states and plan to ask a federal judge to block the one in Georgia. Legislators in the nine states that have passed such bans say they hope to reach the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge Roe v. Wade.

The law's effect on women has been a source of debate and uncertainty. Sponsors of the bill have said women wouldn't be prosecuted but added an “affirmative defense” to allow them to argue in court that they had the abortion to save themselves—similar to a self-defense argument in a murder case.

The law clearly makes doctors and medical professionals and other clinic staff subject to criminal prosecution for performing or assisting in abortion services.

Opponents of the law have expressed concern that it could be used to prosecute women—and to investigate those who have miscarriages. Authorities say that 1 in 3 pregnancies end in miscarriage.

The Medical Association of Georgia lobbied against House Bill 481 because of its reach into medicine. In a letter to the state Senate sponsor of the bill—Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Gwinnett—MAG President Dr. Rutledge Forney said the group “opposes the bill because it would criminalize physicians practicing within their standard of care, creates a new civil cause of action against physicians, could undermine efforts to recruit and retain OB-GYN in Georgia and could further restrict access to health care in rural Georgia.”

Unterman, too, has disagreed with those who say the law could be used to prosecute women.

“I'm going to keep correcting those who play politics and mislead Georgians about what this law does,” Unterman said. “This law does not allow for the prosecution of women. In fact, many prosecutors across the state, including my own in Gwinnett, have gone on the record to clarify that fact.”

Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter told the Daily Report, “I don't think it's legally possible” to prosecute women under the new law. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said he would not prosecute women but did not elaborate.

DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston and Macon District Attorney David Cooke said they won't prosecute anyone under the new law because it's unconstitutional.

Cooke reiterated his position Friday.

“This law is unconstitutional on its face, and as such, I cannot uphold my oath and still prosecute women and their doctors for exercising their constitutional rights,” Cooke said. “Mr. Melvin's deeply disturbing and factually inaccurate editorial should concern every Georgian, given the office he inherited, his prospective appointment at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and his lack of professionalism.”

Melvin stepped into the role of acting DA when Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Vic Reynolds to head the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Reynolds plans to hire Melvin as chief of staff as soon as the governor appoints a permanent DA for Cobb.

Cooke expressed additional concerns about the law in light of Melvin's planned move to the GBI.

“Should the GBI investigate any pre-term fetal death, he could influence any determination whether that woman's conduct, including prenatal care, was reasonable, and whether anything she did, in his view, contributed to that infant's death,” Cooke said of Melvin. “Under this law, he can influence whether she is charged with a felony or not. In short, his views could shape whether or not she is charged with murder.”

Boston also responded to Melvin's statement after an inquiry from the Daily Report.

“It is unfortunate that Mr. Melvin has chosen to inject partisanship into this discourse. Prosecutors should utilize their discretion regardless of party lines. The constitutionality of a law and whether it is enforceable, fair and just should concern every prosecutor: Democrat, Republican or Independent,” Boston said. “The fact that Mr. Melvin has seen fit to bring partisanship into this serious debate reflects a misunderstanding of the work of elected prosecutors across this state and our country. It is indeed a sad day for Georgia prosecutors and the communities they serve when an acting DA is so short sighted.”

Following are some excerpts from Melvin's Merion West article.

“Various Democratic District Attorneys in Georgia have recreated what the civil rights laws defeated, choosing political expedience over personhood. As the political battle rages over the merits of protecting the unborn, an eerie parallel is developing with a previous blight in Southern history. At the center of the controversy is Georgia's 'Heartbeat Bill,' which is designed to provide greater protections to the unborn. By choosing political convention over humanity and personhood, the opponents of the new Georgia law have taken up the mantle of some of the most loathed figures and maligned moments in the South's Jim Crow legacy,” Melvin wrote.

Melvin said the “Jim Crow laws” that institutionalized racism denied the personhood of African-Americans the same way abortion denies the personhood of the unborn.

Melvin also suggested that Adolf Hitler would have been a supporter of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that women have a constitutional right to choose abortion up until viability.

“The Nazi's would have likewise embraced the depraved underpinning of Roe,” Melvin said in his MerionWest article. “A clear undergirding of Third Reich's savagery was that some life was worth of protecting (persons), while others were not.” Melvin cited Henry George's recent Merion West column about Nazi mass murder of people with special needs.

“Under Roe, Jim Crow, and the Third Reich, the defenseless were left unguarded,” Melvin said. “HB 481 stands against this.”

Melvin went on to cite a litany of incorrect statements made about Georgia's new law on the internet. He quoted a Planned Parenthood representative saying that their cause—keeping abortion safe and legal—could be harmed by the spreading inflammatory speculation about the bill's unintended consequences. But he put abortion rights advocates squarely in the camp with the Nazis.

“Decades after the Third Reich fell and Jim Crow was dismantled, America continues to adhere to Roe v. Wade, which promulgated reasoning that would have been welcome in both venues. HB 481 seems to reverse that trend in Georgia,” Melvin wrote. “To the contrary, however, by their embrace of Roe, through a group of Democratic Georgia District Attorneys, the spirit of Bull Connor lives on.”