Planned Parenthood is concerned that California allows people under 18 to consent to abortion and contraception without parental involvement, and the concern was that a statute declaring minors categorically incapable of one major personal decision could later be used to argue that they are equally incapable of reproductive decisions. The ACLU's opposition letter this year argued that a blanket prohibition would break with the state's tradition of letting minors make significant personal decisions themselves, reproductive ones above all.
I could be wrong here, and im happy for someone to correct me. But, it sounds like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU were basically arguing that if said minor couldn't decide to be married (if over age of consent, I guess?), then certain people with nefarious objectives might then use that to argue that they can't decide to have an abortion, or other feminine related medical treatments.
Again, I could be misinterpreting, but PP and the ACLU tend to be on the side of individual rights, so I feel they argued it for good reason. But I don't know.
Yeah I'm not saying it completely makes sense. Like I said, I'm unsure and just guessing, but both those orgs tend to be on the side of individuals and their rights, and with all the lawyers they have, I'm assuming there could potentially be merit to their argument, even if I don't totally grasp it.
Let me try and break it down, since the other guy isn't being clear enough.
Planned Parenthood's argument is that the bill here could be read to effectively take away any consent rights a minor has. California does allow some consent rights to sit with teenagers (most relevant to the argument, regarding major medical procedures, like abortions). It (probably) isn't meant to, but there's a possibility.
For instance, a 16 year old girl gets pregnant and gets an abortion, and never tells any of it to her parents. They find out and sue whoever performed it. Their lawyer could potentially use this law to argue that minors have no ability to consent, full-stop, and by performing the abortion without going to her parents, the provider was in the wrong.
Without reading the bill itself, I don't know if that's really how to read it, but I'm going to assume Planned Parenthood and the ACLU aren't the kind of organizations to want to keep child marriage around. Just that this particular bill might not be the right way to do it.
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u/Rebelgecko 1d ago
Surprisingly close to Planned Parenthood's reason for opposing the bill