SCOTUS Rules in Favor of Pro-Life Pregnancy Center

The NJ Attorney General had demanded sensitive documents from the group.

The First Choice Women’s Health Center in New Jersey, a group of pro-life pregnancy resource centers, prevailed last week at the United States Supreme Court in a unanimous decision that affirmed its right to challenge a state subpoena of its records based on First Amendment grounds.

Photo via Alliance Defending Freedom

The case began in November 2023 when New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin demanded that First Choice turn over documents, including names, phone numbers, and addresses of donors. It also demanded information it provides to clients, statements about abortion pill reversal, and documents about personnel and outside organizations with which it works.

Reluctant to provide such confidential and private information, First Choice, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), challenged the attorney general’s subpoena in federal court based on the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, claiming the subpoena chilled the right to freedom of association and freedom of speech.

“An official demand for private donor information is enough to discourage reasonable individuals from associating with a group,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the court’s opinion. “From its allegations and declarations, and given our many and longstanding precedents in the area and reasonable inferences about third party behavior, First Choice has established that the Attorney General’s demand for private donor information injures the group’s First Amendment associational rights.”

Erin Hawley, who argued the case on behalf of First Choice before the Supreme Court in December, said, “In this resounding victory, the Supreme Court held to its long-standing precedent of recognizing that the Constitution protects First Choice and its donors from demands by a hostile state official to disclose donor identities and contact information.”

First Choice Executive Director Aimee Huber also praised the decision. “For more than two years, Attorney General Platkin targeted First Choice with aggressive demands for sensitive documents, including our donors’ identities. He has gone to great lengths to frustrate the important work we do—work that has made a tangible, life-saving difference for tens of thousands of New Jersey women and their children. As the Supreme Court recognized, the government can’t evade federal court review when it harasses those who support pro-life ministries just because it disagrees with their message and their mission.”

The case has been moving back and forth between state and federal courts since it began.

Access to MinistryWatch content is free. However, we hope you will support our work with your prayers and financial gifts. To make a donation, click here.

Originally, the federal district court dismissed the case, saying it was not ripe for a decision until the state court enforced the subpoena. The attorney general then filed an enforcement action in state court.

The state court granted the enforcement action of the subpoena, but it declined to decide the federal constitutional claims raised by First Choice, finding them “premature.”

First Choice filed an appeal, meanwhile producing some documents requested by the subpoena.

After the state court enforcement action, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit sent the case back to the federal district court, stating First Choice’s claims were now ripe.

However, the federal court again declared First Choice’s claims not ripe until the state court “require[s] the subpoena recipient to respond to the subpoena under threat of contempt.”

First Choice filed yet another appeal to the Third Circuit where the majority said the case was not ripe because the pregnancy center could still assert its constitutional claims in the state court.

The back and forth led ADF to file a petition asking the Supreme Court to review the case to decide the question of whether civil rights plaintiffs need to litigate challenges to state investigations in state court before they can bring federal claims.

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in its favor, First Choice returns to the federal district court for it to decide the pregnancy center’s claims.

TO OUR READERS: The mission of MinistryWatch is to help Christian donors become more faithful stewards of the resources God has entrusted to them. Do you know of a story that will help us fulfill our mission, or do you want to give us feedback about this or any other story? If so, please email us at [email protected].