What the recent Supreme Court ruling means for nonprofit organizations and your rights as a donor.
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of First Choice Women’s Resource Center, representing a win for pro-life clinics but even more so for First Amendment association and donor rights. The ruling itself was primarily aimed at determining whether the faith-based organization had a right to challenge a subpoena from then New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin in federal court.
The case centers on the actions of Matthew Platkin, who served as New Jersey attorney general from 2022 to 2026. After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Platkin established a Reproductive Rights Strike Force to “protect access to abortion care for New Jersey residents and anyone traveling to New Jersey to access care.” One way Platkin aimed to protect abortion was by targeting pro-life pregnancy clinics.
Platkin issued a consumer alert warning the public that pregnancy care centers do not provide access to medical care such as abortions and argued that these care centers provide misleading information about abortions. Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Erin Hawley, who argued this case, shared that Platkin “workshopped that consumer alert to Planned Parenthood and accepted their edits.” The alert asked women who believed that pregnancy care centers provided them with inaccurate information to file complaints. Although there were no complaints filed against First Choice, they received a subpoena demanding documents and threating contempt of court if they failed to turn them over.
The Supreme Court ruling itself was on whether First Choice’s case was legally able to be argued in federal court. Platkin argued that the case should first be heard in state court. Had First Choice filed in state court first, they would likely have been prevented from federal court because of preclusion—the doctrine that prevents a party from re-litigating issues that have already been decided in court. The Supreme Court was unanimous in its decision that First Choice did have the right to federal court, contra to Platkin’s attempt to confine First Choice to state court. This is largely thanks to a federal statute enacted as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, which allows any individual whose constitutional rights have been infringed on by a state official to bring their case in federal court.
The 2022 subpoena issued to First Choice required that they share organizational documents including the names, phone numbers, addresses, and places of employment of their donors. First Choice argued that the attorney general’s demands injured their organization and made donors less likely to give knowing that their personal information could be demanded by their state.
Platkin offered that First Choice’s donor material might lead someone to believe the care center offered abortions, despite their giving page showing pictures of parents and babies. He revealed that he intended to call First Choice donors and inquire if they had been misled when giving their gift.
Imagine sitting in your office at work and getting a call from your state attorney general’s office. They want to ask you about your gift to a pregnancy resource from perhaps years ago. Specifically, they want to know if you felt misled by the organization and if you knew this organization didn’t offer “abortion care.” You’d likely feel caught off guard, confused, and violated. You might also feel that this was the fault of the organization you supported. In attempt to protect its name and donors, First Choice filed a law suit against the attorney general saying that the demand for donor information violated its First Amendment rights; consequently, they refused to hand over donor information.
For donors and organizations, the Supreme Court’s ruling offers assurance of privacy in our giving. We each have causes important to us and we should feel free to give to those causes—even those that aren’t ideologically popular at the time—without fear of confrontation or interrogation.
Now, thanks to this ruling, officials will have to think twice about demanding sensitive information—unless they wish to challenge the power of the federal court.
