The Supreme Court's Newest Abortion Case, Explained
Here’s what you need to know about First Choice Women's Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin
This morning, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin: a case that could determine whether crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are given free rein to lie to women—protected from state regulation under the auspices of free speech.
We have a full breakdown of the case and its implications below, and you should feel free to skip around using the headers. But here’s the short version: First Choice, a network of New Jersey CPCs, claims a state investigation into whether they mislead women is a violation of their First Amendment rights.
And while the actual question in front of the Supreme Court is a narrow, technical one—justices are meant to determine whether First Choice should be arguing in front of a state or federal court—the broader implications are tremendous.
Right now, conservatives are working to empower CPCs with a sort of super-immunity to state regulation—through other similar ‘free speech’ lawsuits, and state and federal legislation. At the same time, Republicans have been exponentially increasing taxpayer funding to the religious groups, and framing CPCs as reasonable replacements for the real clinics their policies are shuttering.
The hope is to use CPCs as the anti-abortion movement’s enforcement arm—from the war on birth control and sex education to data collection and criminalization.
All of which is to say, what happens in First Choice v. Platkin is not just about one organization in New Jersey.
In fact, the very fact that SCOTUS is hearing the case at all—bypassing lower courts—is alarming. The pro-choice advocates we spoke to fear that SCOTUS hand-picked this case to help conservatives—potentially giving CPCs the ability to deceive abortion-seekers and community members unchecked, and discouraging or disallowing state attorneys general and agencies from investigating the groups at all.
You can read the transcript of this morning’s arguments here, and we’ll publish our major takeaways in tonight’s newsletter. But here’s what you need to know in the meantime:
How did First Choice get to SCOTUS?
Who are First Choice and their allies?
What are crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs)?
When did SCOTUS last rule on abortion and CPCs?
Where does the GOP come in?
How did First Choice get to SCOTUS?
In 2023, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin launched an investigation into First Choice to determine whether they violated state consumer fraud laws by lying about the services they offer. (CPCs are well-known for misleading women.) As part of that probe, Platkin’s office subpoenaed documents about the center’s donors, staff, advertising, and claims they’ve made publicly.
First Choice says Platkin is unfairly targeting them and that they have a First Amendment right to shield their donor list. Platkin argues that First Choice is “looking for a special exception from the usual procedural rules as it tries to avoid complying with an entirely lawful state subpoena.”
The organization, represented by the conservative powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), first sued Platkin in New Jersey federal court in 2023. Since then, multiple courts and judges have ruled that the CPCs should be making their case in state court. After one such ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December, the group appealed directly to the Supreme Court.
In June, SCOTUS agreed to take up the case.
Who are First Choice and their allies?
First Choice is the network of five New Jersey CPCs that maintains it has a free speech right to avoid the state’s investigation into its deceptive practices. And let’s be clear—that deception isn’t hard to find.
Through a quick scroll of their website, you’re immediately led to believe First Choice’s facilities offer abortion care: “abortion” is listed on the website’s navigational menu, along with a breakdown of different abortion methods, procedures, costs, and even a section on “after-abortion care.”
First Choice’s misleading content isn’t an anomaly; this is the very business model of CPCs. That said, the group is, in some ways, uniquely shady: First Choice claims to offer so-called ‘telehealth’ services over FaceTime, an unencrypted platform. The group offers little-to-no information about their ‘medical’ services, who is providing them—nor their qualifications to offer these services.
The group also got caught lying to consumers, telling women that their private medical information was protected under HIPAA. (First Choice pulled all the language about HIPAA after the state launched its investigation.)
As previously noted, they’re being represented by ADF, the powerful conservative legal group that overturned Roe v. Wade. Over the last couple years, ADF has been flooding the zone with lawsuits trying to ban abortion pills. The top lawyer on the case is Erin Hawley—wife of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who happens to be one of the most vocal abortion rights opponents in Congress.
Just as unsettling, hundreds of organizations have signed an amicus brief in support of First Choice—but few have anything to do with CPCs or reproductive health. Signatories include the NRA and other right-wing gun organizations, which also have a vested interest in fending off state investigations.
What are crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs)?
CPCs are religious, ideological groups that seek to dissuade women from having abortions, often relying on deception, misinformation, scare tactics—and sometimes even harassment.
The fake clinics will often present as abortion providers on their websites or with signs outside their facilities—a tactic to prey on abortion seekers. (Some will even set up shop next to real clinics, or use a similar-sounding name to trick women.)
What’s important to know is that CPCs are not real health providers, and aren’t obligated to follow federal medical privacy laws like HIPAA—leaving them free to do as they please with abortion seekers’ data. They most often prey on low-income, young women of color who have no other options, advertising cost-free ultrasounds and other cost-free services. Sometimes they offer child care resources like free diapers or strollers—but this is often contingent on the pregnant person attending Bible study classes.
The groups have a long record of coming up with outlandish and unsubstantiated claims to stop women from obtaining reproductive healthcare: they lie that birth control and abortion can cause breast cancer or long-term infertility; sometimes they’ll mislead abortion seekers about where they are in their pregnancy to stop them from obtaining care, or tell them they’ll probably miscarry so there’s no reason to end the pregnancy.
Their desperation to stop patients from having abortions knows no bounds: Victims of CPC predation have recounted feeling physically trapped and unsafe inside CPCs. Some recount experiences with what they now regard as sexual abuse.
Increasingly, CPCs are lying to abortion seekers that medication abortions can be reversed through something called “abortion pill reversal”—a pseudoscience regimen that involves flooding the body with progesterone immediately after taking the pills. There’s no credible evidence that this works, all while the regimen endangers women who try it.
But the goal of CPCs isn’t just to dissuade or prevent people from having abortions: the groups also farm women’s personal data.
“CPCs are positioned to play a central role in surveillance of pregnant people in such a vigilante system,” the watchdog group The Alliance warned back in 2022. “They exist, after all, to reach people experiencing unintended pregnancies, and collect extensive digital data on their clients and their reproductive histories.”
Despite all this, CPCs continue to rake in astronomical amounts of funding—often taxpayer dollars. Within two years of Dobbs, abortion-banned states dumped at least $500 million into CPCs. Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch estimates that in 2023, CPCs across the country brought in $1.9 billion. They’re projected to top $2.5 billion in revenue in 2025.
When did SCOTUS last rule on abortion and CPCs?
Earlier this year, SCOTUS ruled that South Carolina can defund Planned Parenthood because the organization—in states where it is legal—offers abortion and birth control. The last time the court ruled on CPCs was 2018 with NIFLA v. Becerra, determining that California didn’t have the right to mandate that CPCs with the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates disclose that they aren’t abortion providers (and in most cases don’t provide real health care).
In 2024, the Supreme Court punted on two cases involving whether federal law compels hospitals in states that ban abortion to provide emergency, stabilizing abortion care, and whether dated, medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion pills should be reinstated. Some legal experts believe the conservative court opted not to further restrict abortion, instead effectively suspending the cases in legal limbo, to avoid riling up and mobilizing the Democratic base in a presidential election year.
What are the nationwide implications of First Choice?
Again, while the actual question before the court is narrow—the Court’s ruling could pave the way for CPCs using the First Amendment to avoid any kind of state regulation. It’s a moment the anti-abortion movement has been preparing for.
After all, First Choice is just one of multiple ‘free speech’ cases launched by conservative legal groups—suits all brought in response to reasonable state regulations and investigations.
In 2023, for example, California AG Rob Bonta sued Heartbeat International for pushing ‘abortion pill reversal’ on patients—and a court sided with Bonta. Now, ADF is representing those centers, appealing the ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The group accuses California of “censorship” and stopping women from “making informed medical choices.” (The nerve of using the word ‘choice’ is just astounding.)
Last year in New York, AG Letitia James sued 11 CPCs—also for advertising ‘abortion pill reversal.’ Some of those centers sued James, and unfortunately a judge ruled that the CPCs could continue advertising the dangerous, unproven ‘treatment’. And earlier this year in Colorado, a Trump-appointed judge blocked the state from enforcing a 2023 ban on ‘abortion pill reversal.’
In other words, conservatives want Americans—and the courts—to believe that they have a free speech right to lie to women about their health. More than that, they want to ensure they can do so without any state oversight.
These cases were brought at the same time that Republicans are pushing legislation to make CPCs virtually untouchable by state AGs and agencies:
ADF helped craft a bill introduced in Wyoming, for example, that would effectively outlaw the regulation of CPCs, even allowing the centers to sue state leaders who try to stop them. We’ve seen conservative lawmakers pass similar legislation in Montana, introduce it in South Carolina, and push a near-identical bill in Congress.
Where does the GOP come in?
As AED has written many times before—none of what’s happening right now is an accident. Republicans and the anti-abortion movement have made a big bet on CPCs: in part because they believe the groups can help the GOP with their unpopularity with women voters.
As you’d expect, American women aren’t too happy about abortion bans and their votes reflect that ire. Conservatives think framing CPCs as vital aid for women and babies—help that the GOP is pouring all sorts of money into—could help ‘soften’ Republicans’ image.
Republicans also know that CPCs are the best way for them to ban birth control without admitting that’s what they’re up to. CPCs can’t prescribe birth control because they’re not real medical clinics—but they also straight up refuse to. In fact, CPCs’ policies only allow them to discuss contraception if it’s to warn of its ‘dangers’.
That’s why conservatives have been laying the groundwork for years to claim that CPCs can replace real reproductive healthcare clinics: if they can populate communities with religious groups rather than actual clinics, they can claim they haven’t banned birth control—even as they make it impossible to get.
Shielding the groups from any kind of regulation or oversight makes all of that insidious work a whole lot easier.
That’s what they’re hoping for from First Choice.
The first takeaways on this morning’s oral arguments don’t look good, unfortunately. Keep an eye on your inbox tonight for our full breakdown—and we’ll update this explainer as well.
Other healthcare facilities are highly regulated, but these CPCs somehow don’t have to follow any regulations. The war on women, especially those of childbearing age, is real. I truly worry about the future of my granddaughters and the future of all young women. Forced childbirth is criminal.
I also wonder why we don’t protest at these “clinics” like the forced birthers protest at Planned Parenthood. Maybe this would bring the lies to the public’s attention.
Thank you Jessica and team. This is very disturbing and the way the Unsupreme Court is trending doesn’t look good.
All I can say is we need to get the word out to vulnerable populations that these entities are not there to help but to hinder. 😞