Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes delivered her opinion today on a term that hasn’t posed a problem since its inception in 1999. For 25 years, Arizona doctors have known what a medical emergency is and when an abortion would be necessary to protect the life of the mother or keep her from serious bodily harm.

While the Mayes opinion appears to grant doctors an unlimited ability to make a good faith clinical judgment to perform an abortion after 15-weeks gestational age, it’s important to note that judgment still must be made in good faith according to their clinical judgment. Further, ‘medical emergency’ is tied to major bodily functions that are physical in nature, not mental health related.

It’s important to note that one of the repeated lies peddled by the abortion proponents is that women suffering an ectopic pregnancy or a miscarriage will not be able to receive care. Not so, according to General Mayes, as she points out on page 18 of her guidance that treating an ectopic pregnancy or removing a fetus that is no longer living, meaning a miscarriage has occurred, are not abortions.

Further, Mayes puts to rest a repeated false claim that a woman would have to be near death before the doctor could perform an abortion. Even Mayes agrees that is not the case at all. Doctors can perform an abortion on a woman who would suffer significant bodily harm without it.