Democratic AGs Target Nonprofit Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Government is at once Civil Society’s best friend and worst enemy.  Government recognizes and then subsidizes nonprofit organizations through various means, including tax laws.  But when those nonprofit organizations do what they do in a way that governments disdain, governments typically undertake efforts to penalize them.  Just take a look at what Ken Paxton is doing down in Texas.  And the Republicans on Ways and Means have turned attacking universities into a cottage industry, issuing press releases and conducting silly hearings almost weekly.  All without a hint of shame.  

But its not just those crazy red state politicos.  The Wall Street Journal ran with a story last week about blue state AGs and their harassment of crisis pregnancy centers that make no secret that they will never even mention abortion as an option:

Politicians and attorneys general in states run by Democrats have been on a crusade to make life miserable for pregnancy resource centers, and the campaign has picked up since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022. This has included harassing them with legal action and trying to discredit their work.  Pregnancy resource centers provide women facing unplanned pregnancies with free and low-cost support such as counseling on alternatives to abortion, parenting education, medical referrals and material goods. These centers in 2022 provided clients across the U.S. with services valued at more than $367 million, including more than 500,000 free ultrasounds, 3.5 million packs of diapers and 43,000 car seats.

The article describes a coordinated plan by Dems to shut down crisis pregnancy centers under the guise of protecting the public against consumer fraud:

First Choice has supported more than 36,000 women facing unplanned pregnancies since 1985 and doesn’t charge for its services. Yet rather than praise the nonprofit, New Jersey officials are harassing it because of its pro-life stance. Democratic Attorney General Matt Platkin last November issued a subpoena demanding that it turn over a broad range of documents. He did so under the pretense of conducting a civil investigation into possible violations of state laws and regulations, but attorneys representing First Choice wrote in a court filing challenging the subpoena that Mr. Platkin “has never cited any complaint or other substantive evidence of wrongdoing to justify his demands.” 

I parked my progressive bias outside and went inside for a look.  I looked at the pleadings and files myself and it sure does look like the Dems are indulging the same type of anti-Civil Society demagoguery the Republicans have recently perfected. The Wall Street Journal attributes Democratic efforts to politics, the Dodd and desire to portray Republicans as opponents of women’s privacy and right to reproductive healthcare. 

There is plenty of evidence.  Last October, California AG Rob Bonta wrote an open letter sounding the alarm about misinformation and harm emanating from crisis pregnancy centers not just in Cali, but around the country.  Fifteen other AGs, all from blue states, signed on:

We are 16 Attorneys General representing consumers across the country. We have watched with increasing concern in recent years as anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) have proliferated in our states, outnumbering abortion clinics by a three-to-one ratio, while misleading consumers and delaying access to critical, time-sensitive reproductive healthcare.1 As the legal officials charged with enforcing our jurisdictions’ consumer protection laws, we support Yelp’s efforts to ensure that consumers receive clear information about the limitations of the services and staff available at CPCs. CPCs do not provide full-scope reproductive healthcare and often use deceptive tactics to lure in patients seeking reproductive healthcare. These tactics can have dire health consequences and rob patients of their healthcare choices. Efforts such as Yelp’s warnings help educate consumers and ensure patients are informed of what services are and are not available at CPCs, which ultimately protects the public health.

The letter goes on for 10 single spaced pages with lots of footnotes.  I imagine there are plenty of Crisis Pregnancy Centers that are honestly trying to persuade women not to have abortions. That’s their right and it is how Civil Society is supposed to operate. 

I have four daughters.  If one of them has a “crisis pregnancy,” I hope she will talk to me or her mother.  But if she doesn’t, I hope there are places to which she can turn for help.  Places that counsel abortion as a last resort or not at all.  And places that provide abortion services.  Ideally, she will get counsel from however many sources, including churches, she needs to make her own decision.  Using the law to enforce an orthodoxy of thought, whether it pertains to campus speech, migrant shelters, or abortion threatens Civil Society.  It seems we all want nonprofits to shut up at one time or another.  But we should understand that we undermine Civil Society in every case in which we seek to enforce that desire. And we make it easier for others to do the same.  

That seems to be what NJ is doing.  Before the AGs’ letter, NJ issued a “consumer alert” warning readers that crisis pregnancy centers” writ large were up to no good:

WARNING: Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) do NOT provide abortion care. CPCs are organizations that seek to prevent people from accessing comprehensive reproductive health care, including abortion care and contraception. Here’s what you need to know about CPCs. 

Crisis Pregnancy Centers try to convince pregnant people not to have abortions. CPCs may appear to be reproductive health care clinics, but they do not provide abortion care or provide referrals for abortion care, contraception, or other reproductive health care. Many CPCs do not provide any health care at all, despite suggesting to the public that they do. In addition, many CPCs are not licensed medical facilities and do not employ licensed medical professionals, which means that CPC staff likely are not required to keep your health information private or follow medical ethics rules and standards of care. CPCs may also provide false or misleading information about abortion—including the physical and mental health effects of abortion—to deter people from choosing abortion.

Those assertions might all be true, I’m not faulting the syntax.  But the whole tenor condemns with a broad brush intended, it seems to me, to demonize a legitimate Civil Society activity.  Sort of like the Texas AG accusing nonprofit migrant shelters of facilitating illegal immigration by sheltering human smugglers, drug dealers and rapists.  In Texas, California, and New Jersey “the administration is using the force of the state to go after individuals and organizations that they don’t agree with,” NJ (and maybe other blue states) has gone even further.  It has introduced bills to criminalize crisis pregnancy centers for “luring pregnant people through their doors.”

And as with Ken Paxton, the NJ AG issued administrative subpoenas to First Choice Women’s Resource Centers Inc. demanding access to all sorts of records and files that would have taken weeks or months to gather. The AG demanded:

First Choice’s donors, their gifts, and communications with them; every solicitation and advertisement by First Choice on any web, social, print, or broadcast media; the identities and personal information of First Choice’s staff, volunteers, directors, and board members; and its associations with other faith-based, pro-life, nonprofits.

The subpoena goes back ten years even.  First Choice filed an action in federal district court and that action went all the way to the Supreme Court.  The subpoena, the lower court opinions, and all the briefs (including some amicus briefs) are available here, in case you are interested.  Like the nonprofits who received process from the Texas AG, First Choice sought protection from a state court.  The state court dismissed First Choice’s petition on ripeness grounds, stating that First Choice would have to wait until the state sought to enforce the subpoena.  First Choice, pointing out the in terrorem effect of the state’s action, appealed through the federal district court, the Court of Appeals, and finally to the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus, but the Courts demurred each time..  

I could not determine where the case stands right now.  The AG filed what amounts to a motion to compel back in state court, but I could not determine the outcome.  It doesn’t really matter though.  The harm to Civil Society is almost complete regardless of the outcome.  

darryll k. jones