{"id":11002,"date":"2025-12-03T06:20:57","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T06:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=11002"},"modified":"2025-12-03T06:20:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T06:20:57","slug":"the-high-stakes-scotus-case-targeting-pregnancy-centers-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=11002","title":{"rendered":"The High-Stakes SCOTUS Case Targeting Pregnancy Centers, Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Reading Time:<\/span> 5<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As pregnancy centers have increasingly come under attack from Democrat lawmakers in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court\u00a0will hear\u00a0a case next week that could protect pregnancy centers from lawfare.\n<\/p>\n

Do you want state prayer alerts?<\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ahead of the court\u2019s scheduled oral arguments in First Choice Women\u2019s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin on Dec. 2, women who have been involved with or helped by pregnancy centers are speaking out.\n<\/p>\n

First Choice Women\u2019s Resource Centers believes subpoenas issued by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin for donor and other information violated its First and 14th Amendment rights. The nonprofit asked the court\u00a0in February of last year\u00a0to intervene and the justices\u00a0agreed to hear the case in June.\n<\/p>\n

How Did the Case Get Here?<\/h2>\n

In November 2023, Platkin sent subpoenas to the center, which pro-life advocates call \u201cunlawful\u201d and \u201cimproper.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

As\u00a0Alliance Defending Freedom explained, the subpoena demanded 10 years\u2019 of documents, \u201cincluding its statements on abortion pill reversal, information it provided to clients and donors, documents identifying personnel, copies of every First Choice solicitation and advertisement, and information related to outside organizations that First Choice works with.\u201d Attorneys with ADF filed a lawsuit the following month.\n<\/p>\n

Aimee Huber, the executive director at First Choice, recently told reporters that \u201cthere were no allegations of wrongdoing, it was simply a fishing expedition.\u201d She also shared how \u201ccompletely daunting\u201d it was for her \u201csmall nonprofit\u201d to comply.\n<\/p>\n

Lincoln Wilson, an attorney with ADF, explained that \u201cthe issue the court is going to consider is whether First Choice is allowed to bring its constitutional challenge to the attorney general\u2019s subpoena in federal court.\u201d He added that \u201cthe heart of First Choice\u2019s First Amendment challenge is its association rights,\u201d which, of the many claims, is \u201cthe biggest one\u201d First Choice has.\n<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court has taken up similar cases in the past, and ruled in favor of plaintiffs who brought similar claims as First Choice. Wilson brought up the 1958 case of NAACP v. Alabama, a landmark case in which the court unanimously protected the right of association and made clear that the organization did not have to release its donor information, as it\u2019s protected by the First Amendment. These rights were affirmed in 2021 with\u00a0Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think the same thing is going on here with the attorney general\u2019s subpoena and his attempt to get that information from First Choice,\u201d Wilson shared. \u201cAnd we have a right to address those claims in federal court.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Abortion and the Need for Pregnancy Resource Centers in New Jersey<\/h2>\n

New Jersey is friendly to abortion,\u00a0with no gestational limits\u00a0on the procedure. Huber pointed out that the state has the fifth-highest rate of abortion in the country, adding that the state \u201chas done everything they could to make New Jersey a sanctuary state for abortion.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cSince pregnancy centers like ours do not perform or refer for abortion, we are targets for a government that disagrees with our views. If our attorney general can bully us, it can happen in other states that promote abortion,\u201d Huber warned. \u201cIt is our hope that our efforts will result in protection for other pregnancy centers across the nation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Donors are particularly important to pregnancy resource centers because, as Odalys Banks, the direct of centers at First Choice explained, their services are made possible thanks to private donors and volunteers. Many of them do so anonymously over privacy concerns and could pull back or even withdraw if they could no longer do so privately.\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Not Just New Jersey<\/h2>\n

While First Choice Women\u2019s Resource Centers operate in New Jersey, pregnancy resource centers operate throughout the country.\n<\/p>\n

The Daily Signal spoke with\u00a0Rebekah Cohen Morris, the executive director of Aim Women\u2019s Center in Steubenville, Ohio. Her center provides a range of services free of charge, from housing to ultrasounds to parenting classes. Women can earn points at such classes to shop for baby essentials at their boutique.\n<\/p>\n

Above all, Cohen Morris emphasized her center aims to give women sense of \u201cdignity\u201d and how she\u2019s \u201calways thinking holistically\u201d about them.\n<\/p>\n

While Cohen Morris spoke to how the \u201ccurrent climate is very favorable to pregnancy resource centers in Ohio,\u201d she pointed out that she is \u201cdefinitely aware\u201d of the potential threats to centers in the Buckeye State like those occurring in New Jersey. This is especially if a governor who is not pro-life comes into office.\n<\/p>\n

With the wide range of services that PRCs, including Aim Women\u2019s Center provides, staff like Cohen Morris are constantly busy assisting women. Should a center be hit with \u201cfrivolous requests,\u201d as is the case in New Jersey, that takes away time from helping women who may be in crisis. \u201cIt really interferes with the amount of women that we can see and the quality of services that we could give,\u201d Cohen Morris warned about the threat of being such a target.\n<\/p>\n

If donor information is made public, Cohen Morris added, \u201cyou are putting the entire operation at risk potentially.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The Daily Signal also spoke\u00a0with Aisha Taylor, an Ohio-based mom who received support from a PRC in Michigan when she was pregnant with twins.\n<\/p>\n

The center she received help from offered a similar \u201cBaby Bucks\u201d program for women to earn a way to acquire baby essentials by attending parenting classes.\n<\/p>\n

Taylor emphasized that parenting was her choice, which the resource center helped her with. She referred to the \u201chuge community support\u201d and said the emotional support that she received from \u201can important village for [her] during a very difficult time,\u201d was essential.\n<\/p>\n

Without such assistance, Taylor revealed to The Daily Signal that she might not have been able to continue her pregnancy, which would have resulted in her being pressured by her twins\u2019 father into having an abortion. \u201cAnd in that moment, my choice was trying to be taken from me to make a decision that I did not want to make,\u201d Taylor said about the pressure. Some studies\u00a0show that\u00a0a majority of women are pressured into abortions.\n<\/p>\n

Beyond that sense of support for women who want to be parents, to resist that pressure, Taylor wondered who would fill the void in providing such resources.\n<\/p>\n

Where the Case Is Expected to Go<\/h2>\n

Wilson told reporters that this case \u201cmatters not just to First Choice, [but] it matters to pregnancy centers around the country,\u201d which \u201care all subject to the same kind of harassment.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The attorney pointed out that \u201cespecially after the Dobbs [v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization] decision,\u201d which sent the abortion issue back to the states, \u201cmany of [these centers] have suffered\u00a0violence and vandalism.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if the government can just go ahead on a pre-textual theory and demand that you turn over the names of your donors, then everyone in this country is less free,\u201d Wilson said.\n<\/p>\n

Should the court rule in favor of First Choice, Wilson believes the likely path will involve remanding the case to the district court to act on the constitutional claims \u201cthat it\u2019s so far refused to decide.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

How are you praying about today\u2019s arguments? Share your prayers and scriptures below.<\/h4>\n

This article was originally published at The Daily Signal. Photo Credit: Melina Mara \u2013 Pool\/Getty Images.<\/em>
\n \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: 5 minutes As pregnancy centers have increasingly come under attack from Democrat lawmakers in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court\u00a0will hear\u00a0a case next week that could protect pregnancy centers from lawfare. Do you want state prayer alerts? \u00a0 Ahead of the court\u2019s scheduled oral arguments in First Choice Women\u2019s Resource Centers, Inc. v.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[319,2535,1383,2532,2534,2074,2533],"class_list":["post-11002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-prayer","tag-case","tag-centers","tag-explained","tag-highstakes","tag-pregnancy","tag-scotus","tag-targeting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}