Finally, some good news! The Supreme Court seems poised to rule in favor of New Jersey pregnancy centers in a case that would set important precedent not just for the First Amendment, but also for pro-life organizations seeking to secure funding without exposing their donors to risk.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin, a case that began in 2023 when New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin subpoenaed the First Choice centers, supposedly to investigate whether they engaged in deceptive practices by pretending they referred for abortion. Platkin wants First Choice to hand over its list of donors, which the pregnancy help organization argues would infringe on the free expression rights of its donors and open them up to harassment by pro-abortion activists.

The case against Platkin’s unconstitutional demands is so strong that even the ACLU, which called the 2022 Dobbs decision a ”shameful ruling,” joined a friend of the court brief in favor of First Choice.

“Even before they’re enforced, law enforcement subpoenas seeking sensitive donor information threaten to scare away supporters essential to any nonprofit’s work,” said ACLU lawyer Brian Hauss. “At a time when government officials throughout the country abuse regulatory powers to punish their ideological opponents, federal courts must remain a venue in which people can vindicate their First Amendment rights.”

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of pregnancy centers before, deciding in 2018 that they cannot be compelled to advertise abortion. Now it faces the issue of donor privacy. Donating to pro-life organizations such as First Choice (or even Human Life Review!) is not always popular, to say the least. Donors big and small deserve the right to give to pro-life causes without fear of reprisal in their places of work, their communities, online, or elsewhere.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing First Choice, notes that the case also reflects a broader persecution of the pregnancy center.

“New Jersey’s attorney general selectively targeted the nonprofit based on its religious speech and pro-life views with a wide-ranging, unfounded, and burdensome subpoena that requires the organization to expend its limited resources to produce extensive documentation or face judicial sanctions,” ADF’s website says. “The attorney general does not refer to any substantive evidence of wrongdoing to justify his onerous demands.”

The outcome in First Choice will not hinge on the merits of the case, though. “The case turns on a technical legal issue,” the Washington Post reports, “whether First Choice has met the bar to challenge the subpoena in federal court rather than state courts.”

Let’s hope the Supreme Court rules in favor of First Choice when it releases its decision (probably mid-next year). Pregnancy centers that generously provide free resources for women in need do not deserve harassment by their state government, and neither do their donors.