Supreme Court Allows Pregnancy Centers to Challenge NJ Subpoena

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that First Choice Women's Resource Centers, a faith-based nonprofit operating five facilities in New Jersey, can challenge a state subpoena in federal court. The decision reverses lower court rulings and allows the centers to argue that the subpoena violates their First Amendment rights.

Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the opinion, stating that demands for private donor information burden the exercise of First Amendment rights. "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. Disputing none of these precedents but seeking ways around them, the Attorney General has offered a variety of arguments. Some are old, some are new, but none succeeds."

The subpoena, issued in 2023 by then-New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, sought advertisements, donor lists including names, addresses, phone numbers and places of employment, and identities of medical personnel. State officials investigated whether the centers' marketing violated consumer fraud laws by potentially...