Attorney General Faces Impeachment for Targeting Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers

The New Jersey attorney general is facing impeachment, in part, for allegedly targeting pregnancy resource centers for investigation because of their pro-life stance and for demanding the names of their staff and donors in the process.  

Republicans in the New Jersey Assembly filed articles of impeachment against Attorney General Matthew Platkin on Thursday. They accused him of targeting “certain organizations based upon the political beliefs of the organization, specifically pro-life pregnancy centers.”  

The resolution refers to Platkin targeting First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, which has five locations in the state.  

Platkin demanded documents and information from First Choice last year, including the names of staff and the identities of its donors. The attorney general brought the investigation under multiple statutes, but most notably under the Consumer Fraud Act, according to Alliance Defending Freedom legal counsel Gabriella McIntyre.  

“[The Consumer Fraud Act] basically gives the attorney general expansive authority under mere speculation that if a person or an organization is misleading consumers or somehow violating the act, he can then subpoena information,” McIntyre told The Daily Signal. 

According to court documents, the attorney general’s concern was that a donor might have given to First Choice based on the mistaken belief that it was an abortion provider.  

McIntyre said the investigation had a chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of speech, religion, and free association of First Choice staff members and donors and put them in danger. 

“When the [U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022] Dobbs decision that overruled Roe v. Wade was leaked, there were multiple instances of pregnancy resource centers across the country being firebombed, being vandalized, and also death threats made against some of the folks who worked at these pregnancy resource centers,” McIntyre said, adding this could also happen to those associated with First Choice if their names were released. 

First Choice challenged the investigation in federal court as a First Amendment violation. But because Platkin subsequently filed a lawsuit in state court to obtain the subpoenaed information, the federal court ruled First Choice must pursue its First Amendment claim in state court. The legal battle has dragged on for more than a year.  

Attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom are now representing the pregnancy resource centers in a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. The petition asks the court to intervene and allow First Choice to raise its First Amendment claim against the attorney general in federal court.  

In the petition, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys say that without the court’s intervention, individuals targeted by state officials will not be able to raise their claims in federal court. The petition also catalogues Platkin’s continued hostility toward pro-life groups and his cooperation with the abortion provider Planned Parenthood. 

“New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin has made no secret of his hostility towards pregnancy centers,” First Choice’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court says. “He issued a consumer alert—drafted with the help of Planned Parenthood—complaining that such centers do not provide or refer for abortion. He also signed an open letter pledging to take legal action against pregnancy centers.” 

Platkin’s office declined a request for comment from The Daily Signal, citing the ongoing litigation. 

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