A yearslong fight between an anti-abortion New Jersey pregnancy center group and the state's attorney general is reaching the country’s highest court Tuesday.
The legal battle started in November 2023, when Attorney General Matthew Platkin filed a broad subpoena demanding donor names and other documents and information from First Choice Women’s Resource Centers. The subpoena was part of a state investigation into whether the faith-based group was misleading donors or clients into believing it provides abortions.
First Choice challenged the subpoena, filing a federal lawsuit arguing that turning over the information would have a chilling effect on the center’s First Amendment rights and those of its donors. The group also argued Platkin's actions were biased and retaliatory.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide whether a state court needs to rule on the issue before federal courts get involved — not on the subpoena's merits. The hearing comes after federal district courts ruled multiple times that the case isn’t yet “ripe" for federal court review. First Choice in June went to the Supreme Court, which agreed to weigh in.
Platkin said in a statement at the time he was “optimistic” the court would agree “First Choice sued prematurely.”
“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,” he said. “I remain committed to enforcing our fraud laws without fear or favor against anyone.”
In its filing with the Supreme Court, First Choice argued federal district judges were “plainly wrong” in concluding the claims need to go to state court first. The organization, which describes itself in court documents as a “faith-based pregnancy center,” said federal court is the appropriate venue for the claim under a federal law allowing individuals to sue state governments that have violated their rights.
“When a state official is targeting a group over an ideological disagreement, they need to be held accountable in that federal court,” Gabriella McIntyre, a lawyer for First Choice, said. “The state of New Jersey, for example, they have a system where the governor appoints both the attorney general as well as the judiciary. So you run the risk of a very insulated court proceeding.”
First Choice runs five of the dozens of anti-abortion women's health clinics in New Jersey known as crisis pregnancy centers, which advertise services like counseling for unplanned pregnancies. In 2022, under Platkin, the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs published a consumer alert about crisis pregnancy centers, warning residents seeking abortion care to avoid them because they “try to convince pregnant people not to have abortions.” First Choice wasn’t named in the consumer alert, but Platkin filed the subpoena the following year to investigate their operations, expressing concern about the organization’s multiple websites, patient privacy practices, and conflicting evidence about the role of licensed professionals in their operations.
In their Supreme Court petition, the organization argued the subpoena had caused harm before even being enforced. First Choice included anonymous testimony from donors who said they would’ve been less likely to donate if they “had known information about the donation might be disclosed to an official hostile to pro-life organizations” and would be less likely to donate to pro-life organizations in the future because of the subpoena. The group also argued the subpoena harms its ability to recruit new donors.
First Choice Executive Director Aimee Huber wrote in an op-ed this week for NJ.com that Platkin “has been pursuing a personal and political vendetta against pregnancy centers like First Choice” and that the organization’s legal challenge against the subpoena has broader implications for other groups that might be targeted by state governments.
The state argued in its Supreme Court brief that First Choice’s claims of the subpoena’s chilling effect are speculative, since state law requires state officials to protect such information from becoming public.
