WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court unanimously allowed a New Jersey-based crisis pregnancy center to fight a Garden State subpoena demanding access to its donor information.
The lower courts had dismissed First Choice Women’s Resource Centers’ lawsuit, buying New Jersey’s assertion that the plaintiffs could not sue to quash the subpoena due to the fact that the state needed a court order to enforce it.
The justices disagreed, with conservative Neil Gorsuch writing on behalf of his colleagues: “An official demand for private donor information is enough to discourage reasonable individuals from associating with a group.
The Supreme Court unanimously allowed a New Jersey-based crisis pregnancy center to fight a Garden State subpoena demanding access to its donor information. AFP via Getty Images“It is enough to discourage groups from expressing dissident views. A government that chooses to make private donor information public may make the damage worse.”
The Supreme Court’s decision does not end the investigation by the New Jersey attorney general’s office into the crisis pregnancy center, but merely allows the lawsuit by First Choice to proceed.
First Choice Women’s Resource Centers had contended that being compelled to share donor information with the state could have a chilling effect on individuals giving it money, and accused New Jersey officials of a political fishing expedition.
The subpoena was issued in 2023, one year after the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which eliminated the nationwide right to abortion access established in 1973’s Roe v. Wade.
First Choice Women’s Resource Centers in New Jersey was subpoenaed in 2023.
Crisis pregnancy centers such as First Choice Women’s Resource Centers typically try to discourage women from pursuing abortions, drawing the ire of pro-choice activists who accuse them of misleading women to steer them away from the controversial procedure.
New Jersey had claimed it had sought the subpoena as part of an investigation into whether the pro-life group was defrauding donors. But the state admitted during oral arguments last year that it hadn’t received any specific complaints.
The Supreme Court’s decision does not end the investigation by the New Jersey attorney general’s office into the crisis pregnancy center, but merely allows the lawsuit by First Choice to proceed. AFP via Getty Images“Though the subpoena did not explain why the Attorney General sought First Choice’s donor records, [then-New Jersey AG Matthew] Platkin later represented that his office hoped to ‘contact a representative sample [of donors to] determine’ if they had ‘been misled’ by First Choice about its ‘mission and operations,’” Gorsuch recounted in the majority opinion. “In his view, First Choice’s solicitation materials—including a donation webpage featuring pictures of parents holding infants and young children … could mislead donors into thinking First Choice provides abortions.”
The justice went on to cite past precedents in finding for First Choice, stressing: “An injury in fact does not arise only when a defendant causes a tangible harm to a plaintiff, like a physical injury or monetary loss. It can also arise when a defendant burdens a plaintiff’s constitutional rights.”
“…Over and again, we have held those demands burden the exercise of First Amendment rights,” he later added. “The Attorney General has offered a variety of arguments. Some are old, some are new, but none succeeds.”
