Southern Baptist commission supports New Jersey pregnancy centers’ fight against AG investigation

The Southern Baptist Church’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) is backing a New Jersey crisis pregnancy ministry’s Supreme Court case, which centers on the state attorney general’s demands that the ministry disclose internal records and donors’ personal information.

Baptist Press reported that Miles Mullin, the commission’s acting president, said New Jersey’s First Choice Resource Centers is the latest pregnancy resource center to face “constant attack for daring to provide life-affirming care to babies, mothers and fathers facing crisis pregnancies in a culture that tells women the life inside them is dispensable.”

As CatholicVote previously reported, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, a Democrat, subpoenaed First Choice in 2023 and demanded that the organization reveal up to a decade’s worth of confidential documents and the identities and personal information of donors behind nearly 5,000 donations. 

Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), First Choice argued that the Constitution protects it from having to disclose sensitive information about its donors. ADF attorneys filed an opening brief in the US Supreme Court Aug. 22, asking the court to allow First Choice to challenge the investigation in federal court. Lower courts had refused to hear the case, Baptist Press reported.

Mullin said, according to the outlet, “First Choice must be able to seek redress in Federal Court instead of having to navigate a long and arduous process through the state court system first.”

“This is the purpose for which these courts were established – to protect the constitutional rights of citizens and organizations that local authorities do not like,” he continued. “Otherwise, the investigation itself becomes a form of punishment.”

Mullin said the ERLC is grateful the Supreme Court agreed to hear the suit and added that the commission plans to engage in the case.

He continued, “We ask that Southern Baptists and other Christians join us in praying that the court will rule in a way that ensures every pro-life pregnancy resource center has the right to find relief from those that seek to undermine their ministry through investigatory harassment.”

ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley, who argued before the Supreme Court, stated in a news release that Platkin is targeting First Choice “simply because of its pro-life views.”

“The Constitution protects First Choice and its donors from demands by a hostile state official to disclose their identities, and First Choice is entitled to vindicate those rights in federal court,” she said. “We are looking forward to presenting our case to the Supreme Court and urging it to hold that First Choice has the same right to federal court as any other civil rights plaintiff.”

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