The United States Supreme Court handed a unanimous victory Wednesday to an anti-abortion scam center that wants to keep its donor list secret while fighting a state investigation into whether it has been lying to women in the hope that they will miss the chance to have a safe, legal abortion to end an unwanted pregnancy.
The ruling sounds dry and procedural. Do not believe it for a minute.
The case began when New Jersey’s attorney general, Matthew Platkin, started asking questions about First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a network of five faith-based clinics in the northeastern part of the state.
The attorney general wanted to know whether the centers were misleading potential clients into thinking they offered abortion services. He issued a subpoena for documents about donors, staff, advertising, and public claims.
First Choice refused to hand over a single page. Instead, it sued in federal court, arguing that the subpoena violated its First Amendment right to associate privately with its donors.
The attorney general fired back that the center was simply “looking for a special exception from the usual procedural rules as it tries to avoid complying with an entirely lawful state subpoena.”
On Wednesday, the justices said the center can keep fighting in federal court. Nine to nothing. Not a single dissenting vote.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court, made the reasoning plain: a sweeping demand for private donor information burdens the right of association, even when the government promises to keep the names out of the public eye.
He drew a direct line from this case to a landmark 1958 ruling that protected the NAACP from Alabama’s attempt to force disclosure of its membership lists during the height of segregationist repression.
That is the legal backbone of the decision. And on its face, the principle is not trivial. The government should not be allowed to chill political organizing by demanding to know who writes the checks.
The American Civil Liberties Union, no friend of anti-abortion politics, filed a brief supporting First Choice on precisely that ground. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press did the same.
But principles have a way of becoming comfortable disguises. And what the court’s ruling does not say is just as important as what it does.
The court was not asked to decide whether First Choice actually misleads women.
The justices stressed that point repeatedly. The question was purely procedural: can the center bring its First Amendment challenge directly in federal court, or must it first fight the subpoena in state court? The court said a federal court is fine. That is all.
But the effect of the ruling, coming on top of a 2018 decision that struck down a California law requiring pregnancy centers to inform patients about abortion services, is unmistakable. It will become harder for state lawmakers and attorneys general to investigate the roughly 2,600 crisis pregnancy centers operating across the country, many of which have a well‑documented habit of blurring the truth.
Consider the record. These faith‑based organizations attract pregnant women by offering free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, baby clothes, and diapers. They set up shop next to actual abortion clinics. They create websites that include tabs for “abortion services,” “abortion costs” and “after‑abortion care.”
Only in fine print at the bottom do they acknowledge that they are “an abortion clinic alternative” and do not actually provide or refer for abortion.
Staff members often lack medical licenses or formal training. Some provide scientifically inaccurate information about the risks of abortion. It is a multibillion‑dollar industry, largely unregulated, and funded in part by taxpayers.
First Choice itself maintained different websites for donors and the general public, tailoring its anti‑abortion message to each audience. A state investigation found that some client‑facing pages and donor pages elided or obscured its anti‑abortion mission. The center denies any wrongdoing.
When Platkin began asking questions, First Choice cried religious persecution and a violation of free speech. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court gave the center a clear path to press that argument in a federal judiciary that has grown significantly more friendly to anti‑abortion causes over the past eight years.
Erin Hawley, the lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom who argued the case, called the ruling a “resounding victory” and blasted New Jersey’s investigation as “blatantly unconstitutional.” William Haun of the Becket legal group said the decision was a “triumph for every faith‑based ministry in America.”
What they did not say is also worth noting. The ruling does not mean the Supreme Court has endorsed the tactics of crisis pregnancy centers. It does not mean the justices believe the centers never lie to women. The New Jersey investigation can continue. But the center can now litigate in a forum of its choosing, and that forum is one where it has already won a major procedural battle.
The broader implication is this: across the country, crisis pregnancy centers are filing First Amendment lawsuits arguing that any state regulation of their work amounts to discrimination or a violation of religious freedom.
Wednesday’s decision gives those lawsuits a stronger foundation. It says that even before a subpoena is enforced, even before a state judge orders compliance, the mere threat of disclosure is enough to get into federal court and claim a chilling of associational rights.
That is a powerful tool. Like any powerful tool, it can be used for legitimate defense or for evasion. The NAACP used it to protect its members from lynching and imprisonment. A chain of anti‑abortion centers is now using it to shield its donor lists from an investigation into whether it has been deceiving pregnant women.
Justice Gorsuch wrote that stripping away the ability to associate freely leaves “individuals deterred, groups diminished, and their protected advocacy suppressed.”
He is right about the law. But the law does not ask whether the advocacy itself is true. It does not ask whether the groups are helping or harming the women who walk through their doors. It only asks whether the government has followed the rules.
The government says it was following the rules. The Supreme Court said the center can argue otherwise in federal court. And so the investigation stalls, the donor names stay secret, and the women who believed they were walking into an abortion clinic will continue to discover the truth only when it is too late.
That is not a ruling about procedure. It is a ruling about power. And the power, at least for now, belongs to those who have learned to speak the language of liberty while selling something else entirely.