Supreme Court Hand Faith-Based Pregnancy Centers Unanimous Win in First Amendment Subpoena Fight

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a group of faith-based “crisis pregnancy centers” in New Jersey to fight a subpoena from the state’s Democratic attorney general. The decision may make it easier for both liberal and conservative groups to challenge similar investigatory subpoenas in the future.

At a time when states are pursuing radically different policies on abortion, immigration, and LGBTQ rights, the religious nonprofit First Choice Women’s Resource Centers argued that their inability to make their case in federal court was a threat to any group that could be targeted by state officials.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the unanimous opinion for the court. “Since the 1950s, this court has confronted one official demand after another like the Attorney General’s,” Gorsuch wrote. “Over and again, we have held those demands burden the exercise of First Amendment rights. The Attorney General has offered a variety of arguments... none succeeds.”

The nonprofit First Choice runs five centers in New Jersey designed to advise women against having an abortion. New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin subpoenaed the centers in 2023 as part of an investigation into whether the group violated consumer fraud laws, suggesting their marketing misled patients into thinking they provided abortion services.

The state sought advertisements, donor information, and the identities of medical personnel. The subpoena was issued more than a year after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. While the case had ties to the abortion debate, it centered on the power of state officials to investigate versus the power of federal courts to intervene.

The court leaned on a 1958 landmark decision involving the NAACP, which ruled that compelled disclosure of membership lists violates the right to association because people would reasonably fear retaliation for being named.

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