With child marriage still legal in California, advocates are mounting a campaign to push the state to enact a ban, but their effort is facing surprising opposition from progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.
California, a solidly Democratic state, was on track to be the first to pass an absolute ban on marriages for children under 18. But the legislative proposal was met with opposition from liberal organizations like Planned Parenthood, the Children's Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union. Fraidy Reiss, child marriage survivor and founder of Unchained At Last, shows a tattoo of a broken chain on her wrist that she had made when her home state of New Jersey passed a law to end child marriages in 2018, as she demonstrates in front of Massachusetts' State House to call for an end to child marriages, in Boston on September 22, 2021.