October 1, 2026
WASHINGTON (BP) – A Christian pro-life pregnancy resource center can fight in federal court the state of New Jersey’s order to submit a broad spectrum of documents, including the identity of financial donors, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday.
The case came to the high court after New Jersey successfully blocked First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. from challenging in federal court the state’s 2022 subpoena of 28 categories of documents. Subpoenaed, among other information, and which the high court said was most pertinent to the court case, were donors’ names, phone numbers, addresses, and places of employment. The release of such donor information would violate their First Amendment right to freely associate, the centers said in the lawsuit, and would discourage potential donors from giving.
The High Court agreed with the centers, reversing a lower court decision that favored the New Jersey attorney general’s contention that the centers had no standing to sue.
“This case presents a narrow question. We are not asked to decide the merits of First Choice’s federal lawsuit, only whether it may proceed. Article III of the Constitution vests federal courts with the ‘judicial power’ to decide ‘cases’ and ‘controversies.’ Inherent in that assignment is a ‘standing’ requirement consisting of three elements: ‘injury in fact, causation, and redressability,’” Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court.
Based on precedent, “the question before us all but answers itself,” Gorsuch wrote. “First Choice has established a present injury to its First Amendment associational rights,” and thereby has standing to sue in federal court. The High Court remanded the case back to the lower court for trial.
The Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission applauded the ruling.
“In this strong, unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court made clear that New Jersey’s attempt to collect personal information about First Choice’s donors is a constitutional injury and harms their right of free association,” Miles Mullin, ERLC executive vice president and chief of staff, told Baptist Press. “Today’s decision will ensure pregnancy resource centers, doing ministry in states hostile to their mission of serving women, babies, and families, can challenge government overreach.”
ERLC joined eight other religious organizations in an August 2025 amicus brief supporting First Choice.
The court got it right, Mullin said.
“The justices correctly recognized this for what it is,” Mullin said, “the state aggressively using its investigative powers to retaliate against or hinder the activities of organizations whose ideological or religious beliefs it dislikes, striking at the very heart of the First Amendment.”
Becket, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to protecting religious freedom, also applauded the Supreme Court ruling.
“This is a triumph for every faith-based ministry in America,” Becket senior counsel William Haun said in a press release. “The Court made crystal clear that our First Amendment freedoms – including religious freedom – are ‘necessarily’ associative, and that keeps the federal courthouse doors open for religious groups to protect their governance from intrusive state bureaucrats.”
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This story appeared in Baptist Press.
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