SAN DIEGO — A controversial vaccine bill in California that allows kids to get vaccinated without parental consent is changing the age from 12 to 15, after several Democrats said the bill took a step too far.
“We want kids to talk to their parents," said author of the bill, Senator Scott Wiener (D- San Francisco). "But sadly, there are kids who are not in a position to talk to their parents. Not every child is in a perfect home with a perfect relationship with their parents,”
The bill narrowly passed through the Senate and all the way to the Assembly floor.
“I was getting feedback from a number of my colleagues in the Assembly that they will be more comfortable with a slightly older age of consent," Wiener said. "So we took that feedback to heart.”
Some Democratic colleagues said the bill went too far, taking parents out of the equation.
“They're entitled to their opinion, and I respect their opinion," Wiener said. "But I disagree. I don't think that's taking parents out of the equation. The vast majority of teenagers, even if they have the ability to get vaccinated on their own, the vast majority are going to talk to their parents.”
This is not the only vaccine bill to face strong opposition. The bill requiring all school kids to be vaccinated was permanently put on hold. Same fate for the bill requiring all employers in the state to be vaccinated.
“No other state in the country is doing this sort of thing," Republican Assemblymember Kevin Kiley (R- Roseville) said. "And so that bill was stopped in it tracks, the author withdrew it, the governor has now pushed back his own mandate, so it's just this massive overreach that no one was asking for.”
Kiley said he’s hopeful the amended bill will not go through.
“We're still talking about minors here," he said. "I think that we have a very good chance of stopping it from passing the assembly."
Senator Scott Wiener can bring the bill up for a vote any day now, and thinks it will pass with the new changes.
It will then have to go back to the senate because of the changes for another vote, and since it already passed through the Senate in it's original form, he said they’ll easily vote on it again.
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