Both Houses of the Legislature passed S-2528/A3091. It now sits on Governor Christie’s desk. The bill has been dubbed the No Child Bride Bill by its supporters. It is sponsored by some of the most extreme pro-abortion members of the Legislature.
S-2528/A3091 will ban any minor in the state of NJ from getting married even if they have parental consent.
Current NJ law allows minors , aged 16-17 to get married with parental permission. Minors under 16 have to go before a Judge and have parental permission.
This bill takes a “one size fits all” approach and contains no exceptions whatsoever, even for a pregnant minor who is emancipated under NJ law. It shouldn’t be too hard to understand that a pregnant minor who wants to marry the father of her child and is prohibited from doing so, might feel she has no other choice but to have an abortion, especially if her parents are unwilling to help raise the child.
Sadly, those of us in the pro-life movement, know all too well how often this happens.
The lobbyist who wrote the bill was 19 when she claims she was forced by her parents to marry a man who was abusive and the marriage ended in divorce. She was not a minor.
Not all parents force their children to marry. It is also true that not all marriages of minors end in divorce and are subject to abuse. NJ Law already has protections in place for situations where there may be abuse or coercion.
We are including a link to an article from nj.com which contains Senator Mike Doherty’s comments during the Senate vote whiich occured on this bill on Monday. We owe Senator Doherty a debt of gratitude for flushing out the facts. We are also grateful to the 5 Senators who voted No. 9 others abstained.
http://www.nj.com/politics/ind
Below is a link to a Radio Show in which Senator Doherty appeared to talk about this issue. When you go to the site, click on the March 15 podcast.
http://radio.com/audio/rich-ze
Immediate Action Needed:
Please contact Governor Christie at 609 292-6000 and urge him to Veto S2528/A3091
You can email the Governor here:
http://nj.gov/governor/contact
Select: Law and Public Safety from the topic menu
For the subtopic menu, select “Abuse.”
_____
