The ongoing Supreme Court case First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin presents crucial questions about religious protections and the state government’s right to investigate faith-based organizations.
First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, shorthandedly known as First Choice, is a New Jersey-based nonprofit organization that began in 1985. First Choice provides pregnancy-related services to women in need, including but not limited to counseling, ultrasounds, and material items like diapers and baby clothes. The organization openly identifies as pro-life and faith-based, with its employees taking a vow of faith alongside close collaboration with ministry partners at churches.
In November 2023, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin issued a “sweeping subpoena” to First Choice. Essentially, a sweeping subpoena is an extensive legal demand for documents and data to investigate what the state government deems a “large-scale” issue. The compelling state interest of New Jersey’s Division of Consumer Affairs was in investigating concerns that First Choice’s public websites may have omitted important information to mislead clients and donors about its services, staff qualifications, and medical credibility. In particular, the state was interested in investigating First Choice’s claims regarding abortion pill reversal (APR) and questions of whether unlicensed individuals were providing services that required credentials.
The subpoena ordered by Platkin required First Choice to present ten-year’s worth of documents, including internal, private communications, advertising materials, donor information, and communications with partner ministries and organizations. However, First Choice firmly objected to the subpoena, especially to the release of donor information, claiming that it violated their First Amendment right to Free Exercise of their religious practices.
The litigation in this case soon became complicated. In state court, a judge ruled to end the subpoena, instead encouraging both sides to renegotiate the scope of the Division of Community Affairs’s investigation. Simultaneously, First Choice filed a federal lawsuit to prevent enforcement of the subpoena on the grounds that it violated their constitutional rights. However, both the federal district court and the Third Court of Appeals dismissed the case, labeling it as “unripe”. This label means that the Court did not see a need for legal intervention, as there was not yet a renegotiated demand for compliance. Yet, the Supreme Court agreed to First Choice’s request to hear their case on June 16, 2025, and it was argued on December 2 of the same year.
The Platkin case raises a core constitutional issue:
Does the New Jersey Attorney General’s subpoena to First Choice, a nonprofit, faith-based pregnancy center, violate the organization’s First Amendment right of Free Exercise by forcing them into Court over their religious beliefs?
In past cases, the Supreme Court has historically recognized that religious institutions’s internal decision-making must be constitutionally protected. For example, in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v. EEOC (2012), the Court ruled that the government cannot interfere with a religious organization’s minister selection, as doing so infiltrates their Free Exercise rights. Similarly, in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru (2020), the Court ruled that civil authorities are not able to question judgments that are important to a religious organization’s identity. Essentially, both of these cases established a precedent that the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause protects religious organizations’ autonomy over their mission activities, without state interference.
This case is important because it conveys how Free Exercise debates are centered around real, human lives, beyond the traditional settings frequently discussed by the Court, such as schools, churches, or workplaces. First Choice was created to assist women in vulnerable, often isolating situations as a faith-based organization seeking to do good in the public sphere. If Free Exercise protections are not made generally available, then organizations like First Choice may find their core missions subject to state control and monitoring. How the Court rules in Platkin will determine whether these protections extend to lived religious services.
In my opinion, this case is more complex than merely deciding whether First Choice should be exempt from state investigations. The state of New Jersey does have a legitimate compelling interest in protecting consumers from misleading information and questionable medical credibility, concerns that should not be ignored because an organization is faith-based. However, simultaneously, the broad scope of Platkin’s subpoena raises constitutional concerns. Requesting several years’ worth of communications and private donor data risks extending beyond neutral oversight and into the internal functioning of the organization. The Free Exercise Clause should not allow faith-based organizations to be exempt from safety regulations, but it also cannot be so restricted that it allows the government to inappropriately investigate how those organizations define and carry out their missions.
Given this layered perspective, as well as the precedents set in both EEOC and Morrissey-Berru, I think that the Supreme Court is likely to rule in favor of First Choice. The Court has recently shown a willingness to protect religious organizations from government overstepping into internal religious processes. However, while I do think the Court will find Platkin’s subpoena a government intrusion, I do not think that they will disregard the state’s right to investigate specific, reasonably-questionable concerns within religious organizations. A ruling of this sort would uphold First Choice’s First Amendment Free Exercise protections while resisting an absolute exemption from the compelling interest of consumer protections.
Sources:
https://becketfund.org/case/first-choice-womens-resource-centers-v-platkin/
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2025/24-781
https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/first-choice-womens-resource-centers-inc-v-platkin/
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2011/10-553
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/19-267
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