U.S. Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism toward New Jersey’s broad subpoena against a Christian pregnancy center during oral arguments on Tuesday, pressing the state on the basis and scope of its investigation. The case centers on whether the demand for donor and internal records can be challenged in federal court because it allegedly chills the organization’s supporters.
The Supreme Court heard arguments in a dispute between First Choice Women’s Resource Centers and New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin over an investigative subpoena issued as part of a consumer‑protection probe. First Choice is a Christian, pro‑life network of crisis pregnancy centers that, according to court filings and the parties, operates five locations in New Jersey: New Brunswick, Newark, Morristown, Montclair, and Jersey City. The centers offer services such as free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, options counseling, and a parenting program that provides baby clothes and diapers.
New Jersey first subpoenaed First Choice in November 2023. According to the Daily Wire and supporting court documents, the subpoena seeks roughly a decade’s worth of records, including materials related to the group’s promotion of abortion pill reversal, information provided to clients and donors, personnel records, and copies of every advertisement the centers have run, as well as information identifying donors so the attorney general’s office can contact them.
First Choice, represented by the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, challenged the subpoena, arguing it violates First Amendment associational rights by demanding donor names, addresses, and phone numbers in a way that could deter people from giving. The organization contends that New Jersey has not cited complaints specific to First Choice and that the request is overbroad.
During Tuesday’s oral arguments, several justices appeared doubtful of the state’s position, which was defended by Sundeep Iyer of the New Jersey attorney general’s office. In one exchange reported by the Daily Wire, Justice Clarence Thomas asked, “Did you have complaints that formed the basis of your concern about the fundraising activities here?” Iyer responded that the state had received complaints about crisis pregnancy centers in general, but not specifically about First Choice. Thomas then suggested that New Jersey had “no factual basis” for believing the center was deceiving donors and described the subpoena as a “burdensome way to find out whether someone has a confusing website.”
Liberal Justice Elena Kagan also questioned the practical effect of such an unapproved subpoena on donors. Addressing the argument that a subpoena is less coercive if it still requires court approval, Kagan said, according to the Daily Wire’s account of the hearing: “I think here, too, you would make the same argument … that an ordinary person, one of the funders for this organization or for any similar organization, presented with this subpoena, and then told, ‘But don’t worry, it has to be stamped by a court’ is not going to take that as very reassuring. Why isn’t that right?”
Other conservative justices, including Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, also voiced skepticism about New Jersey’s characterization of the subpoena and its potential impact, according to coverage by the Daily Wire and other outlets. Several members of the court suggested that the threat of being compelled to turn over donor information could chill support even before any enforcement action is taken.
Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer Erin Hawley, arguing on behalf of First Choice, told the justices: “This Court has long safeguarded the right of association by protecting the membership and donor list of nonprofit organizations like First Choice. Yet the attorney general of New Jersey issued a sweeping subpoena, commanding on pain of contempt that First Choice produce donor names, addresses, and phone numbers, so his office could contact and question them. That violates the right of association,” she said, according to the Daily Wire.
The case turns on whether and when organizations may seek relief in federal court from state investigatory subpoenas that they say chill First Amendment rights, rather than being required to litigate those claims in state court first. The dispute comes amid broader legal and political battles over crisis pregnancy centers and abortion pill reversal advertising in states including California, New York and Illinois, where some centers have faced investigations and lawsuits over allegedly misleading promotion of their services.
