The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a faith-based pregnancy center, may challenge a New Jersey state subpoena in federal court, marking a procedural victory for the anti-abortion organization in a case that has drawn support from an unusual coalition including the American Civil Liberties Union. The ruling, delivered by the court’s conservative majority, does not decide the merits of the underlying dispute but clears the path for First Choice to argue that the state’s demand for donor lists violates its First Amendment rights to free speech and association.
The case originated when then-New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, a Democrat, sent a subpoena to First Choice seeking donor lists and other records as part of a broader investigation into whether crisis pregnancy centers — facilities that provide prenatal care and encourage women to carry pregnancies to term — mislead clients, including by implying they offer abortion services. Democratic-leaning states have pursued similar investigations as they seek to protect abortion access in the years since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned the nationwide right to abortion. Republican-controlled states, meanwhile, have moved in the opposite direction, enforcing abortion bans or restrictions and steering tax dollars toward such centers.
First Choice pushed back, arguing the investigation was baseless and that the demand for donor information threatened its supporters’ associational rights — a claim the ACLU endorsed despite its long-standing advocacy for abortion rights. “Subpoenas seeking donor information can scare away supporters,” the ACLU’s position stated, aligning with First Choice on the free-speech question even as the organizations remain sharply opposed on abortion.
The state countered that the subpoena could not have threatened First Choice’s First Amendment rights because the group had not yet been required to turn over any information. A court order is needed to enforce the subpoena, and the judge handling the case has so far directed only that the parties negotiate. New Jersey also warned that allowing First Choice to sue could trigger a wave of lawsuits from the thousands of businesses that receive similar subpoenas annually.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department entered the case on First Choice’s side, arguing that any such impact would be limited because the decision would apply only to groups raising comparable First Amendment claims.
Lawyer Erin Hawley of the Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued the case for First Choice, said the group looks forward to taking up the matter in federal court “if New Jersey’s attorney general decides to continue these efforts on remand.”
The ruling is the latest in a series of high-profile Supreme Court wins for abortion opponents, most notably the 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. But the alignment of the ACLU with First Choice on the subpoena question underscores the cross-cutting nature of the First Amendment issues at stake, separating the free-association question from the underlying abortion debate.