The Supreme Court agreed to review a case surrounding an investigation into a New Jersey pregnancy center. The court will consider whether or not the faith-based First Choice Women’s Resource Centers may challenge the investigation launched by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin.
Platkin served a subpoena to First Choice in 2023, demanding that the organization provide donor information relating to its nearly 5,000 donations.
“New Jersey’s attorney general is targeting First Choice—a ministry that provides parenting classes, free ultrasounds, baby clothes, and more to its community—simply because of its pro-life views,” said Vice President of the Alliance Defending Freedom Center for Life and Regulatory Practice and Senior Counsel Erin Hawley. “The Constitution protects First Choice and its donors from unjustified demands to disclose their identities, and First Choice is entitled to vindicate those rights in federal court.”
ADF filed a petition to the Supreme Court requesting that it review the case after lower federal courts insisted that the pregnancy center must pursue its claims in state court.
“The question presented is: Where the subject of a state investigatory demand has established a reasonably objective chill of its First Amendment rights, is a federal court in a first-filed action deprived of jurisdiction because those rights must be adjudicated in state court?” ADF wrote on behalf of the organization.
Platkin said in a statement that the pregnancy center has “for years refused to answer questions about their operations in New Jersey and the potential misrepresentations they have been making, including about reproductive healthcare,” defending the subpoena as “lawful.”
“The question before the U.S. Supreme Court focuses on whether First Choice sued prematurely, not whether our subpoena was valid. I am optimistic that we will prevail when the Supreme Court considers that question this fall,” he said. “First Choice is looking for a special exception from the usual procedural rules as it tries to avoid complying with an entirely lawful state subpoena, something the U.S. Constitution does not permit it to do. No industry is entitled to that type of special treatment—period.”
