Supreme Court unanimously sides with pregnancy center

By Andrew Rice
The Center Square

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, sided with a nonprofit pregnancy center in a federal lawsuit.

The case, First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport, focuses on a New Jersey pregnancy center that provides counseling and resources to pregnant women. In 2022, former New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin issued a subpoena seeking personal information of donors who contributed financially to the pregnancy center.

The attorney general accused First Choice of seeking to prevent people from accessing reproductive healthcare by providing “false or misleading” abortion information.

First Choice argued that it was unable to protect the anonymity of its donors if it provided their personally identifiable information. A lower court denied the pregnancy center’s claim, on the basis that it did not display reasonable injury.

The justices on the Supreme Court sided with the pregnancy center, ruling that producing a list of clients violates the First Amendment.

“The attorney general’s subpoena has caused First Choice to suffer ongoing injury to its First Amendment rights,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the court’s unanimous opinion.

Gorusch pointed to a larger trend of attorneys general across the country who conduct similar behavior.

“Over and again, we have held those demands burden the exercise of First Amendment rights,” Gorsuch said. “Some are old, some are new, but none succeeds.”

SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement provided to The Center Square that the ruling “is huge win for all Americans who stand with mothers and babies and know that, yes, we CAN love them both. Pregnancy centers across America provide hundreds of millions’ worth of vital services a year for women, children and families, typically at no charge and frequently as volunteers. Unlike the abortion industry, they don’t profit from violence and harm, including the harm of abortion drugs that fuel coercion and abuse and send thousands of women to the emergency room each year. Even the Court’s left-leaning justices recognized the far-reaching chill AG Platkin’s weaponization of government would have on all Americans cherished freedoms.”

Her Plan Executive Director Autumn Christensen added: “Today’s ruling is a monumental victory for everyone offering support to vulnerable mothers and their children. The court saw this for what it was – a fishing expedition designed to intimidate Americans who offer real support for women every day. Charities should be able to serve the vulnerable in freedom, not fear. Today, the Supreme Court upheld that right.”