Today, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade, a decision reproductive justice advocates and organizers foresaw as an end to the constitutional right to abortion. Interim Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell also released a statement today on how her office will approach this decision.

Mass Liberation Arizona issued the following statement:

For the past two months interim County Attorney Rachel Mitchell has been maneuvering around the question of how her office will respond to abortion bans and every single time, she uses legal jargon to obscure her actual position. Her statements are ambiguous and that’s the point.

Last month she told multiple media outlets she was obligated to follow the law and the constitution, but wouldn’t prosecute any individual who sought an abortion — yet she wiggled around how she would handle providers as per the new AZ law. She also stated she wouldn’t prosecute when a pregnancy was the result of incest or rape — which is not an exception this new AZ state ban makes.

In these previous statements, Rachel Mitchell clearly demonstrates she’s aware of her power to apply discretion as County Attorney — yet today, she made an absolute statement making no reference to the exceptions she committed to just weeks ago.

In the coming weeks, we expect Mitchell, along with other conservative prosectors in the nation, profess they are bound by “law” to criminalize and cage abortion providers and seekers. And here in Arizona, Rachel Mitchell’s stance will become more and more inconsistent because she can’t win this election without the support of voters who do NOT want this ban.

What’s most ironic about Mitchell’s conflicting statements is that, as a “veteran sex-crimes prosecutor” (a major part of her platform this election) who keeps boasting about her plans to protect women and children, Mitchell refuses to guarantee the right to bodily autonomy to those who experience sexual violence that results in pregnancy. We should expect nothing more from the prosecutor who went on the record before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the historic 2018 Kavanaugh case, to discredit the testimony of a sexual assault survivor.