U.S. Supreme Court will hear appeal by New Jersey anti-abortion centers

The U.S. Supreme Court will weigh a jurisdictional question in an ongoing legal fight between New Jersey’s attorney general and the anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers he’s investigating for deceptive advertising under the state’s consumer fraud law.

Attorney General Matt Platkin and First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a network of anti-abortion centers the state says masquerade as health care providers to lure women considering terminating their pregnancies, are battling over whether a November 2023 subpoena violated the group’s constitutional rights.

The scope of the high court’s review is limited and won’t answer that question. It will decide only whether First Choice’s federal lawsuit can continue before state courts rule on its constitutional claims.

“First Choice is looking for a special exception from the usual procedural rules as it tries to avoid complying with an entirely lawful state subpoena, something the U.S. Constitution does not permit it to do. No industry is entitled to that type of special treatment — period,” Platkin said in a statement Monday.

The center says the subpoena — which sought a range of records including advertisements, representations of its privacy policies, intake forms, and donor identities, among other things — violates its First Amendment rights to free expression, exercise, and association, as well as Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

A federal judge last January denied First Choice’s request for an injunction, directing them to first pursue their constitutional claims in state court, and a U.S. Circuit Court agreed not long after.

The court fight arises from a consumer alert Platkin’s office issued in December 2022 warning of deceptive practices by anti-abortion centers, charging many present themselves as health care providers despite providing no health care and lacking staff licensed to practice medicine.

The alert added that, because the centers are not licensed medical facilities, they are not subject to medical privacy laws like Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — more commonly, HIPAA — and could share visitors’ health data.

Platkin has sought to enforce the subpoena in New Jersey courts, and a Superior Court judge has so far denied First Choice’s efforts to quash the subpoena, though the court did narrow the subpoena’s scope to limit the disclosure of donors’ names to those who gave through two of the group’s websites.

There are more than 50 crisis pregnancy centers in New Jersey, according to New Jersey Right to Life, and most are religiously affiliated.