This week, the Supreme Court granted a unanimous, 9-0 victory in the First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport case on the issue of whether a federal court has jurisdiction to immediately hear the pregnancy center’s First Amendment challenge to an unjust subpoena from the state.
With more than 2,700 life-affirming pregnancy centers in our country receiving 80% of the public’s popular support, the government overreach exemplified in this case threatens the welfare of women in crisis and parenting families. It also attempts to override First Amendment protections that ensure the right to free speech.
In 2023, then-New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin (D) launched a politically motivated investigation into First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a pro-life pregnancy resource center in New Jersey. Platkin issued a subpoena demanding the identities of its donors — from major financial contributors to givers at church baby-bottle campaigns — and other sensitive documents.
Pregnancy centers function as an important safety net, providing medical services critical to pregnancy, confidential counseling, and parental support. These networks provide tangible, in-house help or make connections to social services that ensure these new mothers have food, housing, and employment opportunities — the majority of centers being able to offer their services for free.
Released this past fall, the Charlotte Lozier Institute’s pregnancy center report saw that centers served over 1 million new patients in 2024 and reached a client satisfaction rate of 98%. With more than 8 in 10 centers now providing at least some medical services, pregnancy centers across the nation provided over $452 million in material goods and services to their clients — nearly $100 million more than what was provided around the time of Roe’s reversal.
Pregnancy centers are already standing in the gap for women.
While these services are critical for the health of families, First Choice was the target of the abortion lobby’s politically motivated attacks. The work of pregnancy centers like First Choice is a significant threat to the abortion industry’s business model, which centers on the propagation of lies, diminishing the humanity of the child in the womb, and reinforcing the false dichotomy that women must choose between the baby and overcoming the obstacles driving them to consider abortion to begin with.
Since our nation’s founding, Americans have been subjected to the overbearing arm of the government in the pursuit of political ideology and power over individual liberties. From civil rights to misguided COVID-19 mandates, state and federal governments have attempted, unconstitutionally, to limit individual freedom, often later being rebuffed.
The civil rights movement fought for equality regardless of the color of one’s skin, yet some states opposed their work. In 1958, the Supreme Court reviewed one of these cases, NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson.
There, a state’s attorney general demanded the NAACP’s member lists to deter people from associating with the civil rights organization and stifle the NAACP’s work. The Supreme Court determined that compelling disclosure of group affiliation with the NAACP violated the First Amendment, chilling the organization’s fundamental right to associate with others to advance its civil rights mission.
More recently, the Little Sisters of the Poor experienced relentless campaigns by government officials to disregard their conscience by attempting to force them to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs through their health plans. Despite several judicial victories all the way to the Supreme Court, the progressive Left continues to drag the Little Sisters of the Poor through expensive and unmeritorious litigation.
Government overreach is a constant threat in our divided world, requiring constant vigilance and dedication to the founding principles of our country. This is never more obvious than when powerfully positioned politicians aggressively attack local, community-supported non-profit groups.
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Acknowledging present injury to First Choice’s First Amendment associational rights and granting standing is only the first step to ensuring the rights of pregnancy centers are protected. On this firm ground, we are hopeful that the courts will continue to recognize the threat of overreaching subpoenas.
Pregnancy centers should have renewed hope that, while the abortion-on-demand crowd will continue to push lawfare, their tactics will not overcome the First Amendment’s protections for pregnancy centers to advance their pro-life mission in serving pregnant women and their families.
John Mize is the CEO of Americans United for Life.