Supreme Court Seems Likely to Side With Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Centers

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case where an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center sued a state over a subpoena for information, and, unfortunately, it seems like the justices will rule for the CPC. Representing the plaintiffs was Christian nationalist law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, the same organization that helped orchestrate the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and that argued earlier this term that state bans on so-called “conversion therapy” should be struck down.

The case, First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin, concerns a chain of five crisis pregnancy centers in New Jersey. Across the country, CPCs use predatory tactics like locating near legitimate abortion clinics, offering inaccurate dating ultrasounds, promoting potentially dangerous abortion pill “reversal,” and more, all in an effort to convince vulnerable pregnant people to give birth. Abortion-banned states like Texas and Louisiana have given hundreds of millions in state funding to these centers over the last few years.

In 2023, state Attorney General Matt Platkin (D) sent First Choice a subpoena to investigate whether they were misleading patients and donors about the services they offer—with good reason. First Choice strongly suggests on its client-facing website that it provides information about the abortion pill and referrals for abortion—but its donor-facing site says the organization does not “recommend, provide, or refer for abortion or abortifacients” and is instead committed to “assisting women to carry [pregnancies] to term.” First Choice also claimed on the former site that “there is an effective process for reversing the abortion pill,” which is pseudoscientific garbage.

Platkin intended to see if First Choice was violating the state’s consumer fraud law, and his action came after the AG’s office issued a 2022 “consumer alert” to inform New Jersey residents that CPCs don’t provide abortion care, or even birth control, and explained how people could find legitimate medical providers.

The type of subpoena that AG Platkin sent is called an administrative subpoena, which is a request for information—it’s not the same as a grand jury subpoena or a subpoena issued by a court. There are no penalties for not complying until a court orders that it must be enforced. But First Choice sued the state in late 2023, arguing that the subpoena violated its First Amendment rights because, it claims, the investigation was “borne of retaliation or viewpoint discrimination.”

The technical question at the heart of the case is whether First Choice is allowed to sue in federal court while a state case is still playing out; it’s about determining if they brought their lawsuit at the right time in the legal process. Given that procedural focus, there was almost no discussion of how CPCs mislead people and how the court is about to help them evade future accountability for doing so.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed this case last December, arguing that there was no live controversy and that they should fight the subpoena in state court. First Choice appealed to the Supreme Court and in June, the justices agreed to hear the case. (Note: it only takes four votes to accept a case and the voting is private, so we don’t know which conservative freaks wanted to take this case.)

Arguing for the CPC on Tuesday was Erin Hawley, the wife of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and an attorney at Alliance Defending Freedom. Hawley helped ADF get Roe overturned and argued another abortion case in 2024 that the justices punted on. She is also representing Louisiana in an active case against the Food and Drug Administration over the abortion drug mifepristone. (And Hawley apparently wants a seat on the federal bench herself.)

Hawley argued at the lectern that the subpoena was issued “in the context of a hostile attorney general who has issued a consumer alert, urged New Jerseyans to beware of pregnancy centers, and assembled a strike force against them.” While the state “strike force” is real and launched shortly after the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, it’s about protecting access to abortion and patient confidentiality, not targeting CPCs.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked the attorney for New Jersey, Sundeep Iyer, about this allegation later in the argument. “My friends on the other side don’t let the actual factual allegations get in the way of telling a story about hostility here,” Iyer responded. “At the end of the day, what they’re identifying are policy disagreements that they have with the attorney general. That’s never been enough to establish hostility. It’s never been enough to establish standing [to sue].”

The Trump administration’s Justice Department asked to join the arguments on behalf of First Choice, and, unsurprisingly, the conservative justices seemed to lean toward the crisis pregnancy center over the state of New Jersey. We aren’t likely to get the final ruling in the case until the end of the court’s term in June.

In more bad news: On Monday, an appeals court in a different case sided with New York-based crisis pregnancy centers in a dispute that could also end up at the Supreme Court. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) can’t enforce state consumer protection laws against CPCs that promote abortion pill “reversal” because, it said, the First Amendment likely protects whatever unscientific nonsense they want to spew. ADF is also representing the plaintiffs in that case. I hate it here.

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