Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is generally required to defend state laws when they are challenged in court. But she’s siding with the ACLU in a case contesting state abortion laws.
The case involves state laws that ban certain advanced practice clinicians like specially trained nurse practitioners from providing abortion services — something they’ve historically done.
“We start with the assumption that our job is generally to defend state law. But when there just is not a plausible argument in defense of a state law, then it's not in the public interest or our responsibility to do so. And that's more likely to happen when you have an intervening change in constitutional law," said Josh Bendor, Mayes’ solicitor general.
Like the one made in 2024 when Arizonans voted to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution.
GOP leaders have now hired their own private lawyers — at taxpayer expense — to ask a Maricopa County Superior Court judge to toss the case.
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Prescribing abortion medications via telehealth was previously banned by a state law. But a court ruling in February voided that, and several other abortion regulations in Arizona. -
The Trump administration has launched an online resource hub for new and expectant mothers. The majority of pregnancy centers that the website recommends in Arizona do not offer abortion services. -
Arizona voters approved adding constitutional protections for abortion rights in 2024. But that hasn’t stopped state lawmakers from taking up the issue in various forms since that time. -
State lawmakers are moving to make criminals out of doctors and pharmacists who send abortion-inducing drugs to Arizona women — as well as those who seek them — but questions remain over whether the bill is constitutional.
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Planned Parenthood Arizona is offering new services and has seen an uptick in patients after a February ruling blocking many abortion restrictions in the state.
