Imagine dedicating your life to serving vulnerable pregnant and parenting women in your community. Imagine rallying friends and neighbors to join in your mission to offer them critically needed resources and support. Imagine watching the news about the more than 95 charities just like yours that were attacked and vandalized. But you serve anyway. You keep going because vulnerable women and their children are depending on you for material resources, emotional support, and the tangible reassurance that they aren’t alone.
Then, imagine a representative from the state attorney general’s office shows up at your office demanding constitutionally protected records and donor information without legal cause.
For First Choice Women’s Resource Centers in New Jersey, this was exactly what happened in November 2023. The state’s then-Attorney General Matthew Platkin demanded First Choice hand over 10 years’ worth of internal documents and private donor records simply because the organization offered life-affirming support to vulnerable women.
In December 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers Inc. v. Platkin. The outcome of the case will determine whether nonprofits can continue their life-changing care without politically motivated interference.
In short, the case is a fishing expedition by a state official so focused on promoting abortion that he’s willing to sideline real care for women—the care that pregnancy centers like First Choice in New Jersey and the nearly 3,000 centers nationwide provide.
Pregnancy centers are under attack now, but any other charity could be next.
In this politically charged era of American history, it is tempting to assume the attorney general was simply doing his job, perhaps investigating complaints of mismanagement or illegal activity. But that is not the case. Even Platkin’s counsel admitted he hadn’t had any complaints about First Choice.
If Platkin gets away with targeting First Choice simply for providing care for women, any charity any attorney general disagrees with becomes fair game.
For over half a century, pregnancy resource centers, maternity homes, and other life-affirming charities have offered women an alternative to abortion: real support.
Data shows that women want this kind of support. Sixty-seven percent of women said their abortions were inconsistent with their own values and preferences. Through counseling, material assistance, and long-term support, these organizations help thousands of women navigate pregnancy while building healthy and stable futures for their families.
The national network of nearly 3,000 pregnancy resource centers has offered a lifeline to pregnant women who want to choose life but lack adequate resources or support. Pregnancy resource centers have cumulatively donated hundreds of millions of dollars toward this goal, including $452 million in 2024 alone, with most offering medical, material, educational, and other resources completely free of charge. The broader pro-life safety net of local charities offers additional material, financial, and medical support, empowering vulnerable women to thrive as mothers.
Dozens of women have come forward to testify that pregnancy resource centers like First Choice enabled them to continue their pregnancies and become confident and competent mothers. Many of these women also attest that pregnancy resource centers gave them long-term and wrap-around support, helping them overcome drug addictions, homelessness, poverty, domestic abuse, and more.
Whether you contribute to an addiction recovery program, run a food pantry, or raise funds for cancer research, this case should give you pause. There is a reason we respect the privacy of people who give generously to private charities: Charities bring love, hope, and support to those in need.
Groups across the political spectrum have filed amicus briefs in defense of First Choice Women’s Resource Centers. They recognize what a threat this case will hold if it is wrongly decided. (Even the American Civil Liberties Union agrees this case is outrageous.)
From the beginning, it was obvious that Platkin’s subpoena, which demanded First Choice’s donor records and other private information, was a politically motivated investigation. Within weeks of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, he launched a “Reproductive Rights Strike Force” and later joined a group of extreme state attorneys general in a joint letter criticizing pregnancy resource centers.
It is disappointing, but not surprising, that he burdened the women running First Choice with a time-consuming and costly court case. Americans across the political spectrum are rightly concerned by this overt display of government power against a nonprofit charity. If First Choice loses the case, any nonprofit in America could be entangled in politically motivated, unwarranted investigations that drastically impede their ability to provide care in their communities.
The pro-life safety net’s work is far from finished, but its dedicated, faithful service to moms and their babies shouldn’t be controversial. Organizations like Her PLAN, of which I serve as executive director, are strengthening and extending the pro-life safety net in states across the country to meet growing needs. America’s legacy of neighbors helping neighbors through nonprofit organizations hinges on the decision in the First Choice case.
If the Supreme Court hands the attorney general’s office a victory, charities nationwide, the women and families who depend on them, and the donors who sustain them will face the same political targeting.
Pregnancy centers and the entire charitable community anxiously await the Supreme Court’s decision, hoping and praying it will protect donor privacy and nonprofit independence from political retribution. For the sake of vulnerable women, their children, and the selfless individuals who serve them each day with steadfast resolve, it’s my greatest hope that it does.
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