The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled in favor of a pro-life pregnancy center fighting harassment from Democrat state officials.
The high court ruled that a pro-life pregnancy center can challenge in federal court a sweeping subpoena from New Jersey’s attorney general demanding the identities of its financial supporters and other internal records.
In First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the unanimous court that the New Jersey pro-life group has standing to bring its First Amendment claim.
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“An injury in fact arises when a defendant burdens a plaintiff’s constitutional rights, and government demands for a charity’s private donor information have just that effect,” Gorsuch wrote.
First Choice Women’s Resource Centers is a faith-based nonprofit that has operated in New Jersey since 1985, offering counseling, medical services, baby clothes, food and support to pregnant women facing as an alternative to abortion. The group does not kill babies or refer for abortions.
The subpoena was issued as part of New Jersey’s “Reproductive Rights Strike Force,” launched after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision in an attempt to push abortions and stop alternatives. It demanded 28 categories of documents, including donor names, addresses, phone numbers and places of employment from multiple sources, along with extensive internal records — despite no complaints or allegations of wrongdoing.
First Choice sued in federal court under 42 U.S.C. §1983, arguing the demands violated its First Amendment rights.
Lower courts had dismissed the challenge, saying the center lacked standing until a state court enforced the subpoena. The Supreme Court reversed that ruling and remanded the case.
Aimee Huber, First Choice’s executive director, called the subpoena a “fishing expedition.”
“Since pregnancy centers like ours do not perform or refer for abortion, we are targets for a government that disagrees with our views,” Huber said. “If our attorney general can bully us, it can happen in other states that promote abortion.”
Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Lincoln Wilson, who represented the center, said the ruling was needed to protect pregnancy centers nationwide.
“This case matters not just to First Choice, but it matters to pregnancy centers around the country, which are all subject to the same kind of harassment,” Wilson said. “Especially after the Dobbs decision, many of these centers have suffered violence and vandalism.”
