On Dec. 2, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin, an unregulated pregnancy clinic’s constitutional challenge to the New Jersey attorney general’s subpoena for information about its operations, including donor records.
Despite being awash in revenue, and serial reports of fraud, waste and illegal use of taxpayer funds, these antiabortion clinics are positioning to realize a long-term goal: to “replace” Planned Parenthood and Title X programs and secure federal taxpayer funds to advance an agenda that promotes childbirth and undermines evidence-based healthcare.
As right-wing politicians decimate the reproductive health delivery system for low-income and uninsured Americans, the UPC industry is ramping up the narrative that their unregulated pregnancy clinics are the answer to the maternal healthcare deserts their policies have created.
Most media observers are predicting the Court will rule for the crisis pregnancy center, First Choice. If it does, unregulated pregnancy clinics nationwide will be further emboldened to resist any state oversight, including of their medical services. A bold, innovative, multi-front action by reproductive justice advocates, public health professionals and pro-choice officials is the only way we ensure they can’t succeed.
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UPDATE: In a unanimous 9-0 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the antiabortion pregnancy center at the center of this case, reversing the Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ prior decision and allowing the organization to challenge a New Jersey subpoena in federal court. The Court did not rule on the merits of the subpoena itself, but held that the pregnancy center had standing to bring its constitutional challenge in federal court, rejecting lower court findings that the dispute was premature.
