Crisis pregnancy centers ask Supreme Court to revive suit against New Jersey

By Brendan Pierson

Jan 22 (Reuters) - A New Jersey crisis pregnancy center operator has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive its federal lawsuit seeking to block the state's attorney general from investigating whether it deceived women into believing it offered abortions.

The petition filed on Tuesday came after the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that First Choice Women's Resource Center must first fight Attorney General Matthew Platkin's subpoena in state court before bringing a federal lawsuit.

But First Choice, which has five locations in the state, argued that it had a right to bring its case in federal court because it was alleging a violation of its federal rights to free speech and free association under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

First Choice said the case could serve to rein in politically motivated state prosecutors' abuse of their "authority to investigate based on a mere suspicion of wrongdoing."

"State attorneys general on both sides of the political aisle have been accused of misusing this authority to issue demands against their ideological and political opponents," it said. "Even if these accusations turn out to be false, it is important that a federal forum exists for suits challenging those investigative demands."

First Choice is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that has brought other cases on behalf of anti-abortion plaintiffs including an effort to restrict distribution of the abortion pill that has since been taken over by Republican states.

The office of New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, a Democrat, declined to comment.

Crisis pregnancy centers provide services to pregnant women with the goal of preventing them from having abortions, but typically do not advertise their anti-abortion stance. Abortion rights advocates have called them deceptive because women go to them believing that they offer abortion.

First Choice sued Platkin in New Jersey federal court in 2023 after the attorney general issued a subpoena seeking internal records including the names of its doctors and donors. First Choice argued that there was no good cause for the subpoena, which it said chilled its First Amendment rights.

Platkin moved to enforce the subpoena in state court. Essex County Superior Court Judge Lisa Adubato granted that motion, finding that First Choice had not shown that the subpoena should be quashed at the outset of the investigation, but ordered the parties to negotiate a narrower subpoena and said that the constitutional issues could be litigated further going forward.

U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp then dismissed the federal case, finding that First Choice's federal claim was not ripe because it could continue to press its constitutional claims in the state court and did not face any immediate threat of contempt.

In Tuesday's petition to the Supreme Court, First Choice argued that federal civil rights law is intended to guarantee parties a federal forum to assert their constitutional rights. It said that forcing it to litigate in state court would effectively deny it that forum, since the constitutional claims would be decided before a federal court could ever hear them.

Crisis pregnancy centers have also drawn the attention of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who last May sued 11 centers for advertising abortion pill reversal, a treatment whose safety and effectiveness is unproven.

That case remains pending. Several New York crisis pregnancy centers sued James and in August won an order allowing them to continue touting abortion pill reversal.

The case is First Choice Women's Resource Centers v. Platkin, U.S. Supreme Court.

For First Choice: Erin Hawley of Alliance Defending Freedom and others

For New Jersey: Jeremy Feigenbaum of the Attorney General's office and others

Read more:

New York state sues group over abortion pill reversal claims

NY crisis pregnancy centers can speak about 'abortion pill reversal,' judge rules

Republican states can move ahead with abortion pill lawsuit in Texas

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York)

((Brendan.Pierson@thomsonreuters.com; 332-219-1345 (desk); 646-306-0235 (cell);))