The Supreme Court handed a crisis pregnancy center a significant win on Wednesday in the anti-abortion center’s bid to quash New Jersey‘s subpoena demanding it hand over its donor lists, after the center successfully argued it was unlawfully targeted.
The justices unanimously found that First Choice Women’s Resource Centers had established a “present injury” to its First Amendment rights, allowing it to continue its case in federal court, where the pregnancy center has alleged that the subpoena unlawfully chills its First Amendment free speech rights.
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The case, First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin, stems from a dispute over whether First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a pregnancy center that offers resources for expectant and new mothers, can challenge the constitutionality of the subpoena from then-New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin in federal court. Platkin argued that the subpoena was part of an investigation into whether First Choice misled donors into thinking it is an abortion clinic, something pregnancy centers do not typically do.
Aimee Huber, the executive director of First Choice, said the Supreme Court decision affirmed and 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.”
SUPREME COURT TO WEIGH WHETHER STATES CAN TARGET DONOR LISTS
Justices were not asked to determine whether the pregnancy center acted deceptively, but rather whether First Choice had a legal basis for bringing a constitutional challenge to the subpoena in federal court, or if it needed to continue the litigation in state court.
The subpoena Platkin served First Choice in 2023 demanded, among other records, the names of most donors to the pregnancy center. The Democratic state attorney general demanded the identities as part of an investigation into claims the group misled donors into thinking they were giving to an abortion clinic.
Just before First Choice’s records were due to be handed over to the state, the group sued in federal court, arguing the subpoena was chilling its free speech and free association rights.
Following the federal suit, Platkin attempted to enforce the subpoena in state court, and First Choice lost its bid in 2024 to quash the subpoena at the time, prompting the judge to order parties to work on a narrower subpoena.
First Choice’s complaint in federal district court was ultimately dismissed by U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, who found the lawsuit to be premature at the time, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled 2-1 to uphold Shipp’s decision. First Choice then appealed to the Supreme Court.
“For more than two years, Attorney General Platkin targeted First Choice with aggressive demands for sensitive documents, including our donors’ identities,” Huber said of Platkin’s subpoena efforts. “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.”
During oral arguments in December 2025, the justices appeared largely skeptical of New Jersey’s claims that the subpoena is not an unlawful chilling of First Choice’s First Amendment rights, especially regarding the state’s claims that the subpoena cannot be viewed as enough of a threat to the pregnancy center’s free speech rights to have a case in federal court.
