When New Jersey Came for the Donor Lists, Nine Justices Said No

The Supreme Court does not agree on much these days. So when all nine justices land on the same side of an abortion-adjacent case, you should pay attention.

That is exactly what happened with First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a religious nonprofit in New Jersey that has counseled pregnant women since 1985.

First Choice does not provide abortions. It does not refer for them.

It hands out parenting classes, material support, and a listening ear.

New Jersey’s Attorney General came after them anyway, and demanded their donor lists.

READ: "First Choice Women’s Resource Centers didn’t set out to make constitutional history. It set out to provide material support, parenting classes, and a listening ear to women and families facing unplanned pregnancies in New Jersey."

Erin Hawley, who argued this case at the…

— Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal) April 29, 2026

Supreme Court of the United States described the subpoena and the First Amendment injury this way:

First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc., is a religious nonprofit organization that has provided counseling and resources to pregnant women in New Jersey since 1985. Believing that life begins at conception, the group does not provide abortions or refer clients to others for abortions.

In 2022, New Jersey’s Attorney General established a Reproductive Rights Strike Force that issued a consumer alert accusing groups like First Choice of seeking to prevent people from accessing reproductive health care by providing false or misleading abortion information.

The Attorney General served a subpoena on First Choice, commanding the group to produce 28 categories of documents, including documents reflecting the names, phone numbers, addresses, and places of employment of all individuals who had made donations to First Choice by any means other than through one specific webpage. Effectively, that demand required First Choice to provide personal information about donors who gave through two other websites, through the group’s various social media pages, by mail, in person, or by any other means.

The subpoena warned twice that failure to comply may render the group liable for contempt of court and other penalties.

Here is the core of it. The state issued a subpoena commanding First Choice to turn over 28 categories of documents, including the names, addresses, phone numbers, and employers of people who donated through nearly every channel the group uses.

First Choice fought back and tried to challenge the subpoena in federal court. A district judge said the case was not ripe.

An appeals court agreed.

The Supreme Court reversed that, unanimously, holding that First Choice has standing to bring its First Amendment fight in federal court.

Read that again. The state wanted the personal information of regular people who mailed a check or gave through a website to a Christian pregnancy center.

Not the abortion clinic. The pregnancy center.

The Court explained why that demand is a problem in itself. Forcing a group to expose who funds it can chill association just as effectively as banning the speech outright.

That principle is older than the culture war. It protected the NAACP from Southern states that wanted its membership rolls in the 1950s.

Now it protects pro-life donors in New Jersey. Same Constitution, same rule.

And here is the part that should make you stop and think. The American Civil Liberties Union, which supports abortion rights, backed First Choice’s First Amendment concerns anyway.

The ACLU agreed that subpoenas hunting for donor information can scare supporters away. They were right about that.

The President Trump administration also weighed in to support First Choice. The Justice Department argued the impact of the ruling would be narrow, applying only to groups raising similar First Amendment claims.

So you had the conservative legal movement, a Republican administration, and the ACLU lined up together. That does not happen by accident.

It happens when a state oversteps so badly that even people who disagree on abortion can see the danger.

Now for the catch, because there is one.

The decision is a procedural win. It lets First Choice into federal court.

It does not end the underlying case.

And New Jersey is not backing off. Alliance Defending Freedom, the firm representing First Choice, says the state’s current Attorney General is still trying to get a state court to enforce the same subpoena.

THREAD🧵: Last week, SCOTUS ruled 9-0 in favor of @ADFLegal client First Choice, vindicating its right to challenge the NJ AG’s unconstitutional subpoena in federal court.

Despite that, AG Davenport is demanding a state court enforce the subpoena anyway.

Here’s what’s… pic.twitter.com/8jwc3302Sq

— Kristen Waggoner (@KristenWaggoner) May 4, 2026

So a religious nonprofit that wins 9-0 at the highest court in the land still has to keep fighting to protect the people who gave it money.

Think about what that says about the appetite of certain state officials. The Supreme Court hands down a unanimous rebuke, and the answer from the state is to try another door.

This is the pattern pro-life ministries have been warning about for years. The threat begins with the demand for the list itself.

Sometimes it is paperwork. It is a subpoena.

It is a demand for a list of names that tells donors their generosity could become a government record.

A pregnancy center that helps a frightened woman keep her baby should be free to do that work without hiring constitutional lawyers. But here we are.

The good news is that the Constitution still works when someone is willing to stand on it. First Choice stood on it, and nine justices agreed.

The harder news is that one win does not end the fight. It just keeps the door open for the next round, and the next round is already here.

Pray for the volunteers who answer those phones in New Jersey. Pray for the donors whose names the state still wants.

And keep watching this one, because a state that loses 9-0 and keeps pushing is telling you exactly who it is.

What do you think? Should states ever be allowed to demand the donor lists of a ministry they disagree with?

Sound off in the comments.