Crisis pregnancy centers are facing mounting pushback from abortion-rights advocates, and next month the Supreme Court will hear a case over whether to allow one of these centers to fight back against a state they claim is unlawfully targeting them.
The justices will hear the case First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin early next month, as part of two weeks of arguments in December that will feature a variety of notable cases. At the center of the dispute is whether the group of pregnancy centers can challenge the constitutionality of a subpoena from the New Jersey attorney general’s office in federal court.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin served First Choice with a subpoena in 2023, seeking, among other records, the names of most donors to the pregnancy centers. The Democrat demanded the identities as part of an investigation into claims the group misled donors into thinking they were giving to an abortion clinic. Pregnancy centers do not perform abortions but instead tend to offer support and resources for pregnant women and mothers with young children.
First Choice fought the subpoena in federal court, claiming that it was an unlawful chilling of the group’s First Amendment rights, its donors’ privacy, and a fishing expedition with no valid claims of wrongdoing by the centers. Lincoln Wilson, a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom who is helping represent First Choice, told reporters he is “skeptical” of Platkin’s theory for the subpoena, noting his public criticisms of pregnancy centers.
“He is someone who’s been overtly hostile to the mission of pregnancy centers. He issued a consumer alert against pregnancy centers, warning New Jerseyans that they do not perform abortions, and he even asked Planned Parenthood to help him draft the alert,” Wilson said.
“So this is exactly the sort of thing where it’s properly read and understood as an attempt for him to harass and persecute First Choice for its protected speech and get its donors to stop supporting it,” he added.
Platkin argued in his brief to the high court that First Choice has not shown enough evidence that issuing the subpoena by itself is enough to establish a Constitutional claim in federal court. He claimed that the state court, where the subpoena was entered, has not penalized the pregnancy center for not complying with his order, meaning that there is no injury that First Choice can claim.
Wilson claimed that the state attorney general has shifted his position as the case has moved through the federal court system, pointing out that the state has moved for sanctions against First Choice for failing to comply with the subpoena. He also argued the case goes beyond pregnancy centers, but that it holds major stakes for any organization looking to shield its donors from possible government harassment.
“This matters far beyond the context of pregnancy centers, any organization right or left, no matter which side of the aisle you’re on, there needs to be the ability to keep this information confidential,” Wilson said. “And if the government can just go ahead on a pretextual theory and demand that you turn over the names of your donors, then everyone in this country is less free.”
The Supreme Court has traditionally sided with protecting the anonymity of donors to organizations as a key First Amendment protection, dating back to cases involving attempts to reveal the identities of donors to the NAACP in the 1950s. The most recent case involving a dispute over donor identities before the high court was in 2021, when the justices struck down a California law mandating nonprofit organizations disclose their donors.
The case in First Choice v. Platkin will not be directly about the issue of donor anonymity, but will test the burden that groups bringing lawsuits will be required to show in federal court on the matter. A federal district court tossed the case, finding that “no actual or imminent injury has occurred” in the case, while a federal appeals court also found the organization did not have claims to bring at this point in the subpoena dispute.
First Choice is hopeful the Supreme Court will reverse the lower courts’ findings and allow the lawsuit to quash the subpoena to go forward. Aimee Huber, executive director of First Choice, said receiving the subpoena was “overwhelming” and hopes their lawsuit can result in protections for pregnancy centers.
“New Jersey has the fifth-highest abortion rate in the nation. Our state has done everything they could to make New Jersey a sanctuary state for abortion, since pregnancy centers like ours do not perform or refer for abortion, we are targets for a government that disagrees with our views,” Huber told reporters.
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“If our attorney general can bully us, it can happen in other states that promote abortion,” Huber added.
The high court will hear arguments in the case on Dec. 2, with a decision expected by the end of June 2026 at the latest.
