Supreme Court unanimously upholds the rights of a Christian pro-life center

In a stunning unanimous opinion, on April 29, 2026, in First Choice Women’s Center, Inc. v. Davenport, Attorney General of New Jersey, the Supreme Court found in favor of officials of a faith-based pro-life pregnancy center who challenged a baseless subpoena from New Jersey’s attorney general demanding its donor lists.

In light of Justice Gorsuch’s comment that “associational rights carry special significance for political, social, religious, and other minorities,” this column reviews First Choice’s background before offering analysis and commentary on its importance.

Background and facts

A not-for-profit religious organization that offered counseling and other resources to pregnant women in New Jersey since 1985, First Choice provides free parenting classes, ultrasounds, baby clothes, diapers, car seats, and Bible classes to women facing unplanned pregnancies regardless of their ages, races, religions, or ability to pay. It does not offer or refer clients for abortions.

In 2022, New Jersey’s pro-abortion Attorney General, Matthew J. Platkin (who was replaced by Jennifer Davenport in February 2026), created a “Reproductive Rights Strike Force.”

He then issued a specious consumer alert accusing First Choice and other pro-life groups of seeking to prevent access to “comprehensive reproductive health care” by “provid[ing] false or misleading information” about abortion. Platkin demonstrated additional hostility towards pro-life centers by allowing pro-abortion Planned Parenthood employees to preview and edit the draft of his alert, thanking them for their “partnership.”

In November 2023, although unable to identify any complaints against it, Platkin subpoenaed First Choice seeking documents containing such sensitive personal information as the names, phone numbers, addresses, and workplaces of about 5,000 donors.

Judicial History: Lower Courts

First Choice officials challenged the subpoena as violating their First Amendment right to freedom of association and donor privacy by possibly having “chilling” effects on individuals who might have stopped contributing due to fears of reprisals by state officials over their pro-life beliefs.

A state trial court, in an unreported order—available in a Supreme Court brief supporting First Choice—refused to terminate the subpoena but did not order it to disclose the materials. Instead, the judge ordered the parties to negotiate an agreement over identifying donors while preserving the constitutional arguments for future litigation.

After the federal trial court in New Jersey rejected First Choice’s claims, a divided Third Circuit affirmed its denial as not “ripe,” or ready for review, because state proceedings continued and it had yet to be ordered to disclose the information. With the support of diverse groups, including the United States Solicitor General and American Civil Liberties Union, First Choice appealed to the Supreme Court, which reversed in its favor.

Judicial History: Supreme Court

In an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court held that due to New Jersey officials’ attempts to compel First Choice to respond to its investigatory subpoena seeking donor information, it had the jurisdiction to hear whether they violated its First Amendment right to freedom of association.

After reviewing the case’s history, Justice Gorsuch observed that it “presents a narrow question. We are not asked to decide the merits of First Choice’s federal lawsuit, only whether it may proceed.”

He added that because First Choice demonstrated that it suffered “an injury in fact” insofar as benefactors might have been hesitant to donate for fear of reprisal from state officials, it has standing, the legal ability to initiate this litigation. Gorsuch explained that the Court has long ruled that “compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute as effective a restraint on freedom of association.”

In light of the evidence before the Supreme Court that New Jersey did not deny, Gorsuch determined that “given our many and longstanding precedents in the area and reasonable inferences about third-party behavior,” First Choice demonstrated that the donor information officials sought injured its First Amendment associational rights. In the final paragraph of his order, Gorsuch wrote:

Since the 1950s, this Court has confronted one official demand after another like the Attorney General’s. Over and again, we have held those demands burden the exercise of First Amendment rights. Disputing none of these precedents but seeking ways around them, the Attorney General has offered a variety of arguments. Some are old, some are new, but none succeeds. Accordingly, the judgment of the Third Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Analysis and commentary

As a preliminary matter, it is important to note that First Voice involves a procedural rather than a substantive issue. In other words, and without minimizing its significance, this means that First Choice now has the opportunity to challenge the subpoena on the merits of its well-founded constitutional claim that New Jersey officials attempted to intimidate its donors by seeking disclosure of their personal information.

Still, there is no mistaking that First Voice is a significant victory for the First Amendment right to freedom of association and ultimately religion and speech in response to overly intrusive pro-abortion politicians who refuse to respect the constitutional rights of pro-lifers as they seek to defend the lives of the unborn.

In a surprising turn of events, the three most pro-choice members of the Supreme Court—Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—joined in the unanimous judgment. Considering this, to their credit, these Justices recognized that because New Jersey’s attorney general and his staff engaged in nothing more than unwarranted harassing behavior of the pro-life center, they approached the case and its facts with open minds, standing up for what is constitutionally proper and just.

Based on the record, it is clear that New Jersey officials engaged in a factually challenged fishing expedition targeting First Choice in an attempt to punish it via “lawfare”, wherein the process is the punishment. In fact, as acknowledged above, during oral argument at the Supreme Court, New Jersey’s lawyer admitted that the allegations of wrongdoing against First Watch were unsubstantiated. Yet, Platkin and representatives of Planned Parenthood vengefully schemed to force First Choice to spend precious resources it might otherwise have used doing its good work of providing pro-life services to the unborn and their mothers in defending against this frivolous suit.

New Jersey’s politically motivated “investigation” demonstrated a lack of impartiality designed to harass First Choice, as Platkin teamed up with Planned Parenthood, the nation’s foremost pro-abortion group, in his consumer alert.

In preventing New Jersey from seeking to compel First Choice to disclose its donor list, the Supreme Court clearly chastised its officials for violating the First Amendment rights to freedom of association of individuals who contributed financial support to it, and who reasonably fear that releasing their names would subject them to intimidation and reprisals at the hands of unscrupulous public officials.

In weaponizing the legal system against pro-lifers, these political activists also abused the fairness of the judicial process in demonstrating their lack of respect for the faith-based beliefs, First Choice, those it serves, and its donors.

An unintended irony in First Choice is the devotion political figures involved in the so-called pro-choice movement demonstrated, as they are anything but open to ideas inconsistent with their own. Put another way, by trying to intimidate donors who sought to exercise their constitutional associational rights to defend the unborn, New Jersey officials, supported by the giant in the abortion industry, Planned Parenthood, strove to silence those with whom they disagreed, blatantly ignoring their rights.

Another irony is present in how the media tips the scales in reporting on First Choice and other cases involving abortion. Rather than demonstrate any sense of balance, the media routinely describe supporters of abortion as pro-choice. Conversely, the media stubbornly refuse to respect pro-life supporters, consistently referring to those defending the unborn from death as anti-abortion. Reporters intimate that we are more anti-choice rather than recognizing that we are pro-life by supporting the unborn while seeking to defend the sanctity of their precious lives in what should be the safety of their mothers’ wombs.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Attorney General Davenport defiantly said, “[w]e look forward to defending our subpoena in court. We will continue to enforce our fraud laws without fear or favor.”

Stay tuned to see whether Davenport respects First Choice’s constitutional rights or tries to harass it into silence because she disagrees with what it has to say.

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