Mixing use of autotools-utils.eclass with regular phase functions and/or random econf/emake calls is unsupported and it never was. Most likely, due to recent fixes to the eclass, the ebuild does no longer build. Please fix it by using correct autotools-utils phase functions as pointed out in the example on top of the eclass and/or its manpage. If you have any trouble, feel free to ping us and we'll help you fix it. Thanks.
Created attachment 298109 [details, diff] app-accessibility/sphinxbase: Fix partial autotools-utils use wrt bug #392079. (Portage version: 2.2.0_alpha84/git/Linux x86_64, signed Manifest commit with key 42B9401D)
Committed.