SACRAMENTO, California (LifeSiteNews) – The California Legislature gave final approval to a bill that would make it vastly easier for minors seeking abortions to do so behind their parents’ backs by expanding the range of non-parent “caregivers” who could assume authority over medical decisions.
Originally introduced and sold as a way to account for situations where a parent is unavailable due to immigration proceedings, the Family Preparedness Plan Act of 2025 would “revise the definition of relative to expand the type of relative who is authorized to execute a caregiver’s authorization affidavit and grant them the same rights to authorize school-related medical care, as defined, for the minor that are given to guardians.”
The new definition of “relative” would be an “adult who is related to the child by blood, adoption, or affinity within the fifth degree of kinship, including all stepparents, stepsiblings, and all relatives whose status is preceded by the words ‘great,’ ‘great-great,’ or ‘grand,’ or the spouse of any of the persons specified in this definition, even after the marriage has been terminated by death or dissolution.” An earlier version of the bill would have allowed teachers, neighbors, and others with no familial tie of any kind to qualify.
“Even though they officially have removed that language and they are claiming that it’s not going to allow nonrelatives, the fact remains, number one, that you still do not need a parental signature,” California Family Council president and CEO Jonathan Keller told the Washington Stand. “So, I mean, yes, it’s great that it theoretically can’t just be a person off the street that can do it. But if you’re removing the signature, that is fundamentally still an assault and an attack on parental rights.”
“In addition to that, the new version still will not require verification or notarization,” he added. “There’s no real way of proving that the person who is presenting the affidavit is actually who they say they are. You’re essentially saying that even though someone has to say they are not a nonrelative family member, how do you prove that that person is not a nonrelative family member?”
It now awaits a signature from far-left, pro-abortion Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom. Odds of Newsom signing it into law are high given his ideological leanings, though there is a possibility he may begin to avoid particularly extreme measures if he anticipates them haunting him in a hypothetical 2028 presidential run.
Regardless, the ability of effectively any relative to approve a minor’s abortion, even a relative through a past marriage that no longer exists, would at best make it vastly easier to abort without a parent’s knowledge or consent, and at worst become a powerful tool for abusive family members.
Though commonly opposed by the abortion industry and its activist allies, parental involvement rules for underage abortions stop the practice from being used by sexual abusers to cover up and continue their crimes, as is often the case — sometimes with the knowledge and cooperation of Planned Parenthood staffers, as established by undercover investigations by the pro-life group Live Action.
Twelve states have banned all or most abortions. But the abortion lobby continues to work feverishly to cancel out those deterrents via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and enshrining abortion “rights” in state constitutions.
