{"id":42355,"date":"2026-04-30T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=42355"},"modified":"2026-04-30T07:42:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:42:52","slug":"supreme-court-bolsters-donors-free-speech-rights-in-unanimous-crisis-pregnancy-center-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/supreme-court-bolsters-donors-free-speech-rights-in-unanimous-crisis-pregnancy-center-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court bolsters donors\u2019 free speech rights in unanimous crisis pregnancy center ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wayne Unger<\/a>, Quinnipiac University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for a chain of crisis pregnancy centers<\/a> based in New Jersey to challenge a subpoena from New Jersey\u2019s attorney general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Choice Women\u2019s Resource Centers operates at several locations throughout New Jersey. There are more than 2,500 of these Christian-led nonprofits<\/a> in the United States. Most try to discourage pregnant women from obtaining abortions<\/a>. Some offer free medical services, such as over-the-counter pregnancy tests and sonograms. Many give their clients clothing, diapers and other items that the parents of babies require.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Choice caught the attention of Matthew Platkin in 2023 while he served as the state\u2019s attorney general. He suspected that it violated New Jersey\u2019s Consumer Fraud Act by misleading its donors about its mission and operations<\/a>. According to court filings<\/a>, Platkin wanted to determine if First Choice had misled its donors and patients into believing that the centers provide \u201ccomprehensive reproductive health care services, including abortion care and contraception, when they in fact have an objective of deterring individuals from seeking such services.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of New Jersey\u2019s investigation, Platkin issued a subpoena demanding that First Choice produce donation records, including the personal information of the donors, over a 10-year period so that his office could \u201ccontact a representative sample<\/a>\u201d of them to determine if they had \u201cbeen misled\u201d by First Choice about what the group does \u2013 that is, whether or not it provided abortions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Choice asserted that the subpoena violated its First Amendment rights, and that it had a right to sue New Jersey\u2019s attorney general in federal court to quash the subpoena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court sided with First Choice in its unanimous ruling on First Choice Women\u2019s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport<\/a>. The case now bears the name of New Jersey\u2019s current attorney general, Jennifer Davenport<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my view as a privacy and constitutional law scholar<\/a>, the court ruled correctly by concluding that issuing a subpoena for personal information regarding a crisis pregnancy center\u2019s donors may deter those donors from supporting the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quashing New Jersey\u2019s subpoena<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After First Choice sued to block the subpoena, Platkin argued that federal courts lacked jurisdiction to decide the case. That\u2019s because First Choice\u2019s alleged injury \u2013 deterring donors from supporting the organization \u2013 had not yet materialized because New Jersey had not yet tried to enforce the subpoena in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, Platkin argued that the case was premature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But First Choice argued that merely issuing a subpoena can deter donors from making a gift. To further its argument, First Choice presented<\/a> what it said was an \u201canonymous declaration from several donors describing the present chill on their First Amendment-protected association.\u201d In its view, the injury was real and concrete enough for the federal courts to decide the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The justices have now cleared the way for First Choice to continue with its lawsuit against New Jersey authorities in federal court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Court ruled on a related case in 2018<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The First Choice case might sound similar to a case the court decided in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra<\/a>, the Supreme Court considered a different First Amendment claim asserted by a California-based organization that counsels crisis pregnancy centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, California enacted the Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act, better known as the Reproductive FACT Act<\/a>. That law required clinics to inform their patients of California\u2019s free or low-cost access to family-planning services, prenatal care and abortion. Several anti-abortion groups objected to California\u2019s mandate, claiming the Reproductive FACT Act unconstitutionally compelled crisis pregnancy centers to disclose a message they do not support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court agreed. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, concluded<\/a> that the Reproductive FACT Act required clinics to \u201cprovide a government-drafted script about the availability of state-sponsored activities\u201d that the clinics opposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the court\u2019s view, this violated the clinics\u2019 First Amendment rights because it compelled them to speak a message containing an implicit viewpoint \u2013 support for abortion \u2013 that the clinics fundamentally opposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both cases sit at the intersection of abortion politics and the First Amendment, but they raise distinct questions. The prior one, which addressed California\u2019s attempt to regulate crisis pregnancy centers, asked whether the government can force those centers to make mandated statements. This new one, First Choice, asks whether the government can force the centers to disclose their donors\u2019 identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
An abortion rights supporter protests outside the Supreme Court building in 2018, when the court heard a different crisis pregnancy center case. AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Precedent set in an old NAACP case<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The court has found previously that donations are a form of protected speech, including in its Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission ruling<\/a>. In that 2010 decision, the majority recognized that \u201cAll speakers, including individuals \u2026 use money amassed from the economic marketplace to fund their speech.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the Free Choice ruling, each right protected by the First Amendment \u201cnecessarily carries with it a corresponding right to associate with others.\u201d Without such a right, he added, \u201cno two men could safely share the same soapbox.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This crisis pregnancy center ruling also reaffirms what the court decided about seven decades earlier in NAACP v. Alabama<\/a>. The NAACP, founded in 1909<\/a>, is one of the nation\u2019s biggest civil rights groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this 1958 ruling, the court concluded that any government actions that \u201cmay have the effect of curtailing the freedom to associate<\/a>\u201d warrant the highest form of protection under the First Amendment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That ruling protected the privacy of NAACP members in Alabama. While there were no donors involved in that case, I believe that the rights of donors in the First Choice case are analogous to the rights of the NAACP\u2019s members in the 1958 case \u2013 in that both have the right to the protection of their privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1950s, Alabama Attorney General John Patterson wanted to shut down the local NAACP chapter<\/a>, based on his belief that the civil rights organization was \u201ccausing irreparable injury to the property and civil rights of the residents and citizens of the State of Alabama\u201d by operating within the state as an unincorporated association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a part of his effort to oust the NAACP from Alabama, Patterson sought the membership lists of the local chapter, which, if disclosed, would have unquestionably caused \u201cintimidation, vilification, economic reprisals, and physical harm<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, in the 2026 First Choice case, Gorsuch, who wrote the 9-0 decision, \u201cdemands for private donor information inevitably carry with them a deterrent effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is similar to Alabama\u2019s demand for the NAACP\u2019s membership list in 1958.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is hardly a novel perception that compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute as effective a restraint on freedom of association,\u201d Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan II declared in the ruling, which essentially shut down Alabama\u2019s effort to ban the NAACP<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one\u2019s associations,\u201d Harlan added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to read this ruling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Many conservatives today will surely see the court\u2019s decision as a win for the anti-abortion movement<\/a> and its associated organizations. And many progressives will perceive it as another ruling from a supermajority conservative court that favors the rights of Americans who oppose access to abortion over those who support abortion rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court, for example, overturned the nationwide right to abortion in 2022 in its Dobbs v. Jackson\u2019s Women\u2019s Health Organization ruling<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think both interpretations are wrong because this case is more about free speech than abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fundamental principle the court asserted in NAACP v. Alabama remains intact \u2013 there is a vital relationship between the right to privacy and the freedom to associate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since its ratification in 1791, the First Amendment has protected<\/a> much more than the rights that are expressly mentioned in its text. It protects the right to speak freely, just as it protects the right not to speak and the right to speak anonymously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The First Amendment protects the right to associate with groups and organizations, just as it protects the right to associate with those groups and organizations anonymously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It protects the right to think freely, to hold certain beliefs and to reject others. And as the Supreme Court reaffirmed in the First Choice case, the First Amendment protects individuals\u2019 rights to associate with organizations that align with their beliefs by donating to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wayne Unger<\/a>, Associate Professor of Law, Quinnipiac University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wayne Unger, Quinnipiac University The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for a chain of crisis pregnancy centers based in New Jersey to challenge a subpoena from New Jersey\u2019s attorney general. First Choice Women\u2019s Resource Centers operates at several locations throughout New Jersey. There are more than 2,500 of these Christian-led nonprofits in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":42356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8025,292,46,42,827,295,10,296,36,4,38],"tags":[2388,1804,310,16563,272,3223,11881,1614,885,891,886,860,10566,4408,2183,3050,15458,1801,2029,17712,8212],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42357,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42355\/revisions\/42357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}