The Supreme Court announced Monday it will hear a dispute between a Christian, pro-life pregnancy center and New Jersey’s attorney general, who is seeking information on the center’s donors.

First Choice Women’s Resource Centers petitioned the court to take up its case challenging a subpoena from New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, requesting documents and the identities of the organization’s donors.

The pregnancy center took the dispute to federal court, raising First Amendment concerns.

“The breadth of the Attorney General’s demand is staggering. It requires First Choice to disclose donor information for some 5,000 individual contributions,” reads the pregnancy center’s filing. “It would include everyone who gave at First Choice’s benefit dinners and through church baby-bottle campaigns — even though such donors could not possibly be confused about First Choice’s pro-life mission. And the Attorney General made his broad demand for donor identities without identifying a single donor complaint.”

The district court and the appeals court said the case was not ripe yet for review, as the subpoena fight was ongoing in state court.

First Choice says the attorney general is hostile to pro-life pregnancy centers after the Supreme Court in 2022 reversed Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that gave women the right to abortion nationwide. The court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization returned jurisdiction over abortion to the states.

The pregnancy center claims that New Jersey’s attorney general sent out a consumer alert redirecting people to Planned Parenthood, away from pro-life centers.

Mr. Platkin had urged the justices not to take the case, arguing the pregnancy center is not harmed by allowing the legal battle to continue in state court rather than reviewing the federal claim.

“Petitioner faces no penalties for noncompliance with the subpoena unless and until a judicial order mandating the production of documents issues. Although the State issued its subpoena in 2023, the state court has not required production of any documents—and has instead declined the State’s requests for such an order,” reads Mr. Platkin’s filing.

The case is First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin.

It took four justices to vote in favor of hearing the dispute, which will be argued during the court’s next term that begins in October.  

• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.