(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Planned Parenthood opposed a California bill that would ban child marriage in the state if passed.
The approval of the proposal—which would implement an absolute ban on marriages for minors under 18 years of age—faced opposition from several liberal organizations such as the Children’s Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, according to Breitbart.
The abortion giant expressed concern over the ban due to the possibility of greater restrictions on abortion access for minors.
Both California and Mississippi have no minimum required age for marriage.
The state of California requires parental consent for minors to marry; however, the law would not consider sexual activity between a legal minor and a legal adult to statutory rape if married with parental approval.
Planned Parenthood spokesperson Jennifer Wonnacott said the organization “strongly supports protecting youth from abuse of all kinds,” but those protections cannot make it more difficult for minors to access abortions.
“The idea that banning child marriage—a human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives— might somehow undermine girls’ rights is preposterous,” said Fraidy Reiss, founder of a nonprofit aimed at ending child marriage in the United States. “We at Unchained see again and again that child marriage survivors often lose all sexual and reproductive rights, repeatedly forced to have unprotected sex and forced to endure pregnancy, childbirth and childrearing without their consent.”
Unchained At Last, founded in 2011, published research revealing that 23,588 minors married in California between 2000 and 2018—making the state the second highest in the nation for underage marriages, second only to Texas.
State lawmakers in California are expected to pass the law in early 2024.
“The U.S. considers marriage under the age of 18 in foreign counties to be a human rights abuse,” Assembly member Cottie Petrie Norris, a Democrat, told the Times. “The reality is this is happening in the dark corners. It is absolutely shocking and it’s horrifying.”
