The Problem with “MAID” or Medical Aid in Dying

Language matters. In the same way abortion is not healthcare, assisted suicide is not “Medical Aid”. AUL’s comment opens with a direct request to stop using the term “MAID.” The phrase “medical aid in dying” sanitizes a practice that is a physician prescribing a lethal drug dose to end a patient’s life. The American Medical Association has itself rejected the term, noting it is “neither precise nor accurate.” Congress has consistently used the language “assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing” in federal law, including the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act and the Affordable Care Act’s conscience protections. HHS and CMS should follow suit. Killing innocent human beings is wrong, no matter what you call it, but clear language helps the public understand the reality of physician-assisted suicide.

Assisted Suicide is Legal in Only 14 Jurisdictions and Riddled with Failures

Assisted suicide is legal in only fourteen U.S. jurisdictions, twelve states plus the District of Columbia, and Montana through court action. Even in these states, the supposed “safeguards” are failing patients. AUL’s comment documents alarming gaps:

Informed consent is not being protected. 

Studies show that 25–50% of patients seeking assisted suicide exhibit signs of depression. This is a condition that can impair the very decision-making capacity the law purports to uphold. Yet in Oregon in 2025, prescribers wrote 637 lethal prescriptions while referring only two patients for psychiatric counseling.

Prescribers often don’t know their patients.

Oregon’s 2025 data shows the median patient-physician relationship in assisted suicide cases was just four weeks, with some as short as zero weeks. This “doctor shopping” makes meaningful diagnosis of underlying psychiatric conditions nearly impossible.

Nobody is present when patients die.

In Oregon in 2025, the prescribing physician was present at the time of ingestion only 23% of the time. In California in 2024, a physician or healthcare worker was present just 48% of the time. There is no requirement that anyone witness the patient’s death or confirm the patient was the one who actually took the drugs.

Lethal drugs are experimental and unregulated.

There is no FDA-approved drug for assisted suicide. Prescribers have been mixing and modifying experimental drug cocktails. These deadly compounds and changing formulations are different year over year without clinical trials, Institutional Review Board oversight, or state guidance on dosing. In 2025, 13% of Oregon prescriptions used a brand-new lethal compound that hadn’t existed in prior years.

Disability Discrimination

Perhaps the most important finding in AUL’s comment is that patients seeking assisted suicide are overwhelmingly not doing so to manage pain. In Oregon and Washington, the top reasons cited were loss of autonomy, diminished ability to engage in enjoyable activities, loss of dignity, and fear of being a burden. Only 37–39% cited inadequate pain control.

These are the very concerns that define life with a serious disability or illness. The National Council on Disability warns that legalizing assisted suicide creates a two-tiered system in which the young and healthy receive suicide prevention treatment while the sick and disabled are offered a lethal drug cocktail instead. That is not compassion. It is discrimination.

Assisted Suicide Increases Overall Suicide Rates

Research is unambiguous: legalizing assisted suicide is associated with a 6.3% increase in overall suicides, not to mention a heart-wrenching 14.5% increase among adults over 65. Far from reducing suffering, the legalization of assisted suicide undermines the very suicide prevention infrastructure that protects the most vulnerable Americans.

AUL’s Requests to CMS

AUL is urging HHS and CMS to take two concrete steps:

1. Adopt accurate terminology. Use “assisted suicide” — not “MAID”. Be consistent with federal statute and the AMA’s own guidance.
2. Establish federal reporting requirements for hospice programs. Washington’s 2024 data shows providers failed to submit required documentation in hundreds of cases, including 75 missing patient requests, 63 missing attending provider compliance forms, and 65 missing after-death reports. Without federal oversight, abuse goes undetected and violations go unaddressed.

Hospice patients deserve transparency, accountability, and protection, not a system that looks the other way while compliance failures mount and experimental drugs go unchecked.

To read AUL’s full comment, click here.

The post AUL Urges Federal Government to Reject “MAID” Framing and Strengthen Oversight of Assisted Suicide appeared first on Americans United for Life.

Over Twenty States Have Shield Laws

To date, twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have some form of shield law. These laws “shield” abortionists in pro-abortion states from civil, criminal, and/or professional liability for causing an abortion in a pro-life state, including when abortionists prescribe mail-order chemical abortion drugs across state lines. For example, abortionists in states with shield laws cannot be brought to court for damages caused by practicing abortion illegally in pro-life states; they cannot be extradited—removed from the shield law state and sent to a pro-life state for judgments; they cannot lose their medical licenses for practicing medicine even outside of their jurisdiction, and without being licensed to practice medicine in pro-life states. Thus, a fundamental problem with shield laws is that they allow an abortionist to operate illegally in pro-life states.

Shield Laws Raise Numerous Issues for Women and Unborn Children

Consequently, shield laws raise numerous health and legal issues for pro-life states, pregnant women, and unborn children. Besides the fact that these laws allow abortionists to kill unborn children who are supposed to be protected by states’ pro-life laws, shield laws also endanger women. This is especially evident in cases involving abuse. There are increasing reports where women who wanted their children were forced to take the abortion pills by violent or deceitful family members, boyfriends, or husbands. These pills are often purchased by abusive family members using the woman’s name. Further, since these illegal abortions take place over the internet, they have all the issues associated with telemedical abortions. Without an in-person visit, an abortionist is unable to verify that a woman is under the 10-week threshold for chemical abortion drugs or diagnose an ectopic pregnancy or rhesus immunization. Additionally, abortionists who prescribe mail-order abortions often do not have a medical license in the states where they are sending abortion drugs. Thus, they are violating state and medical board laws which require licensing to ensure high standards of care. Without a license, doctors have no legal duty to ensure patient health and safety, thus risking the lives of patients.

Shield laws also violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause and the Extradition Clause of the United States Constitution. The Full Faith and Credit Clause states that “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.” This clause is meant to bring unity of judgment to the states. If a state court issues a judgment, other states must respect that judgment. Shield laws, however, ignore this clause. Currently, Louisiana and Texas have brought suits against certain abortionists in New York and California. Like other states with shield laws, California’s law specifies that it will not enforce judgments from pro-life states against abortionists. This leaves pro-life states without a way to enforce judgments against abortionists.

The Extradition Clause provides:  

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the Crime.

Ordinarily, this clause prevents criminals from seeking sanctuary by fleeing to other states. Governors from California and New York, however, citing their shield laws, have refused to extradite abortionists to pro-life states for trials. One of New York’s shield laws states that it will not extradite any medical professionals to answer charges of abortion unless they were physically present in the pro-life state during the abortion. This argument, however, contradicts modern principles of personal jurisdiction over persons who allegedly committed crimes using the internet. By intentionally remaining outside of pro-life state borders, abortionists who perform illegal abortions in those states are evading—and thus fleeing—justice.

Threats to Human Life Need to be Challenged

Shield laws are the latest threat to human life, as pro-abortion activists attempt to stop pro-life states from effectively enforcing their laws and interfere with the practice of medicine in those states. Shield laws allow abortionists to violate health and safety laws and encourage dangerous telemedical abortions. Further, they violate the U.S. Constitution. To protect women and children across the nation and the pro-life laws that safeguard their lives, it is critical that shield laws be challenged and invalidated.

Americans United for Life offers policy solutions to limit the harmful effects of abortion shield laws. The Chemical Abortion Accountability Act gives women the ability to stop the harm of mail-order chemical abortion and hold abortionists accountable. Additionally, the Preborn Infants Wrongful Death Act permits a plaintiff to pursue a civil wrongful death claim against an abortionist who unlawfully kills a preborn child. Please contact our policy experts to learn more about legal solutions for your pro-life state to combat shield laws.

The post Shield Laws: Medically and Constitutionally Dangerous appeared first on Americans United for Life.

• The Supreme Court has long recognized parents’ fundamental constitutional right to direct their children’s upbringing, a right rooted in centuries of common law and over 100 years of constitutional precedent.
• Overruling Roe v. Wade means no federal abortion right exists to compromise this parental right. With Dobbs, the constitutional obstruction that Roe placed on parental authority has been removed.
• This parental right takes precedence over state constitutional protections for abortion and laws giving judges broad authority to bypass parents. Under the Supremacy Clause, state constitutions must conform to the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects parents’ rights.

For decades, Roe v. Wade did more than create a federal “right” to abortion. It systematically dismantled one of the most deeply rooted rights in American law: a parent’s right to be involved in their child’s medical decisions. Now, with Roe gone, a new legal report from Advancing American Freedom, co-authored by Americans United for Life (AUL) Litigation Counsel Carolyn McDonnell, shows the important history of parental rights in law and argues that parental rights are not only restored, but legally dominant.

See highlights below, or read the full legal report here.

A Right Rooted in Centuries of Law

The right of parents to direct their children’s care and upbringing is not a modern invention. It predates the Constitution itself. From Thomas Aquinas to John Locke to Sir William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England is the second-most cited work by America’s founders, the principle has been clear: parents, not the state, hold primary authority over their children.

The Supreme Court enshrined this principle in constitutional law as early as 1923 in Meyer v. Nebraska, and reaffirmed it in landmark cases like Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), and Troxel v. Granville (2000). As the Court stated in Troxel, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment “protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.” Just this year, in Mirabelli v. Bonta (2026), the Supreme Court reaffirmed that parents have “the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s…health.”

This is the highest standard of protection in American law.

What Roe Did to Parental Rights

When the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973, it didn’t just create an abortion right. It began a decades-long project of subordinating parental rights. In Planned Parenthood v. Danforth (1976), Justice Blackmun struck down a parental consent requirement and reduced parents’ constitutional right to mere “parental discretion.” As one NYU Law professor noted, Blackmun “got it exactly backwards even to regard the parental right as something the state gives to parents at all.”

Then came Bellotti v. Baird (1979), which imposed the now-familiar judicial bypass system on every state, requiring courts to authorize abortions for minors without parental knowledge or consent, based on vague standards like “maturity” and “best interests.” Today, 38 of the 39 states with parental involvement laws still include these bypass procedures. Every one of them is a direct product of Roe’s command.

Dobbs Changed Everything

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the Supreme Court held that Roe was “egregiously wrong on the day it was decided.” With its rightful overturning, went away the constitutional foundation that justified excluding parents from their daughter’s abortion decision.

Under Dobbs, abortion restrictions face only rational basis review. This low bar gives states wide latitude. But parental rights remain a fundamental constitutional right requiring strict scrutiny to override. The legal imbalance that Roe created has been flipped. Courts must now take seriously what the McDonnell and Jipping report argues: parental bypass statutes, born out of Roe’s distorted framework, cannot survive when measured against the Fourteenth Amendment’s robust protection of parental authority.

This is already playing out in the courts. In Doe v. Uthmeier (Florida 2025), a state appellate court held that the parental bypass statute violated a parent’s constitutional right and certified the question to the Florida Supreme Court.

What States Can Do Now

The report outlines a clear path forward. States can repeal or amend parental bypass statutes that have no constitutional basis now that Roe is gone. They can strengthen existing laws like requiring two-parent rather than one-parent consent, or consent rather than mere notification. And parents can invoke the Supremacy Clause to challenge state court rulings that improperly allow state abortion rights to override federal parental rights protections.

Eighteen states have already enacted a Parental Bill of Rights affirming that parental liberty is “a fundamental right” subject to the highest constitutional standard. Fourteen more states have courts that recognize that strict scrutiny applies. The legal and legislative tools are available. To see where your state stands on parental rights, see AUL’s State Spotlight.

The Bottom Line

The Dobbs decision did not just return abortion policy to the states. It restored the constitutional order that Roe inverted. Parents once again hold the primary role in their children’s lives! The law, properly understood, backs them up. AUL will continue to fight for that truth in courts and legislatures across the country.

Source: “Parental Rights and Abortion After Dobbs,” Thomas Jipping & Carolyn McDonnell, Advancing American Freedom (May 2026). Carolyn McDonnell serves as Litigation Counsel at Americans United for Life.

The post After Dobbs, Parental Rights Take Center Stage and Courts Are Starting to Notice appeared first on Americans United for Life.

Signers of this letter are just some of the more than 1,500 pregnancy center leaders who are part of Seven Weeks Coffee’s nationwide network and supported by their mission. 

Anton Krecic, Founder & CEO of Seven Weeks Coffee, stated, “Seven Weeks Coffee is privileged to support over 1,200 pregnancy centers nationwide and elevate their message that abortion providers must be defunded. Abortion businesses are unequipped to meet the actual needs of women, while the pregnancy centers we support offer practical resources, including baby essentials, parenting support, and medical guidance that support moms before and after birth.” 

John Mize, CEO of AUL, emphasized, “Extending the historic defunding of abortion providers accomplished through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act must be the first priority for Congress in further reconciliation efforts. Women deserve authentic healthcare, not to be sold the taxpayer-funded lie that ending the life of their children will resolve the difficult circumstances leading them to consider abortion in the first place. Where abortion businesses will always fail to empower women, Congress must protect the rights of life-affirming pregnancy centers which continue to meet women in their need.” 

Read the full letter here. 

For more information or to arrange an interview with AUL, contact Gavin Oxley at press@aul.org or 202-987-3321. 

Since 1971, Americans United for Life (AUL) has advanced the human right to life in culture, law, and policy by equipping advocates and lawmakers with the facts and strategies that change hearts and minds and protect human life. The first national pro-life organization in the country, AUL is a nonprofit, public-interest law and policy organization with a four-star rating from Charity Navigator.

The post Nationwide Coalition of Pregnancy Centers Calls on Congress to Extend Abortion Provider Defunding appeared first on Americans United for Life.

John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life (AUL), stated, “By staying the Fifth Circuit’s ruling on mail-order abortion regulations, the Supreme Court is allowing hundreds of women to continue to be harmed by chemical abortion drugs each day. It does not take an FDA review to see the effects of abortion by mail. Women have continued to bring stories of coerced and forced abortion forward, and yet they have not been served the justice they deserve. While today’s ruling is undoubtedly a setback, we will continue working until women and their children are protected from Biden-era abortion policy.” 

Sarah Zagorski, Senior Director of Public Relations and Communications for AUL, added, “Today’s decision is a disappointing setback for the pro-life movement, as the Supreme Court ruled against Louisiana and continues to allow expanded access to chemical abortion via telehealth and mail-order distribution. As an abortion survivor and lifelong Louisiana resident, this is deeply personal. I think of children like me who may never get a chance, and women who deserve stronger safeguards and real medical care. This ruling raises concerns about coercion and abuse when abortion drugs are accessed without in-person medical oversight, leaving vulnerable women and girls more exposed.”

For more information or to arrange an interview with AUL, contact Gavin Oxley at press@aul.org or 202-987-3321.

Since 1971, Americans United for Life (AUL) has advanced the human right to life in culture, law, and policy by equipping advocates and lawmakers with the facts and strategies that change hearts and minds and protect human life. The first national pro-life organization in the country, AUL is a nonprofit, public-interest law and policy organization with a four-star rating from Charity Navigator.

The post Supreme Court Grants Emergency Applications, Restoring Unchecked Mail-Order Abortion Pills for Now appeared first on Americans United for Life.

Today, Americans United for Life (AUL) and a coalition of 59 leading national and state pro-life organizations sent a letter to Speaker Johnson, Majority Leader and other Republican leadership calling for another reconciliation package to extends defunding of abortion providers before the current provision expires on July 4, 2026. 

John Mize, CEO of AUL, stated, “Americans United for Life is proud to be a consistent leader calling for defunding of abortion providers. When the majority of Americans oppose their hard-earned tax dollars subsidizing abortion, Congress has every reason to extend this popular, pro-life provision as long as possible under the reconciliation rules. We will continue leading the charge on behalf of all Americans until abortion providers never see a dime of federal funding again.” 

Sarah Zagorski, Senior Director of Public Relations and Communications for AUL, added, “Last summer, Congress won a victory on behalf of American taxpayers by protecting federal dollars from being directed to abortion providers in the form of fungible Medicaid reimbursements. Failing to extend this provision will reinstate that moral burden on the entire nation. Leadership must stand strong and ensure that no American wonders whether their tax dollars are being spent against their conscience.” 

Read the full letter here. 

For more information or to arrange an interview with AUL, contact Gavin Oxley at press@aul.org or 202-987-3321. 

Since 1971, Americans United for Life (AUL) has advanced the human right to life in culture, law, and policy by equipping advocates and lawmakers with the facts and strategies that change hearts and minds and protect human life. The first national pro-life organization in the country, AUL is a nonprofit, public-interest law and policy organization with a four-star rating from Charity Navigator.

The post Americans United for Life Leads Pro-Life Coalition Urging Congressional Leadership to Defund Abortion Providers Again appeared first on Americans United for Life.

Untracked Prescriptions and Lost Lethal Drugs

Assisted suicide has been legal in Oregon since 1997 and has been in use since 1998. In 2025, 400 people, a slight decrease from 2024, died as a result of assisted suicide in the state. Even more troubling is the growing disparity between prescriptions and deaths; in 2025, 637 prescriptions were dispensed, but only 358 were known to have caused death while 100 individuals passed away without using the drugs. However, the state does not know the status of the remaining 179 prescriptions. Further, in 2025, the report disclosed that doctors gave prescriptions to 30 persons from outside the state. A troubling footnote (p. 7 n.†) explains that the OHA cannot document deaths outside of Oregon, and has thus lost track of the prescriptions. With so many of the prescriptions lost, there is no way to guarantee that the drugs are used by the intended recipient. This is disturbing because the drugs are experimental compounds at lethal dosages. As of 2023, there were at least two reported cases where relatives took sips of the assisted suicide drugs and barely survived. Untracked and “lost to follow-up”, these drugs pose a huge danger to society, especially with the rates of non-assisted suicide increasing. In 2024 alone, 941 individuals in Oregon took their own lives outside of the “Death With Dignity Act” legal framework.   

Compliance and Coercion

The Oregon DWDA tries to combat this danger by requiring physicians to report prescriptions, deaths, and complications to the OHA. This measure, however, is entirely dependent on the physicians’ compliance. Unfortunately, significant amounts of data are missing because of non-compliance. Additionally, although medical professionals are encouraged to oversee ingestions and deaths, the report explains that 21% of patients did not have any medical professional or volunteer present when they took the medicine and 44% had neither when they died. This brings up the additional complication of coercion from family members. Since the majority of assisted suicide patients are older than 65, they are prime targets for elder abuse.

Missing Data on Complications and Side Effects

Lack of medical presence and reporting also leads to missing data about side effects accompanying death. Although the DWDA report claims that the medications do not have other issues — only 7 patients reported difficulty swallowing the medicine while 113 patients experienced no apparent complications — they do not have records on 280 patients. With missing data for over half of the patients, it is impossible to draw any conclusions about the complication rate of the medications beyond death. 

Drug Cocktails Without FDA Approval

The drugs used in assisted suicide have also changed drastically over the years. In 2025, three different combinations of drugs were used, including DDHAPh (diazepam, digoxin, hydromorphone, amitriptyline, and phenobarbital), a concoction used for the first time this year by 13.3% of patients. Although the assisted suicide front is quick to say that these drugs are effective and have minimal complications, they can only be tested by being used on the patients themselves. Further, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which ensures the safety and efficacy of medications, can never approve assisted suicide drugs because they are inherently unsafe. Assisted suicide drugs do not treat any medical condition but instead prematurely end a patient’s life. 

Doctor Shopping and Inadequate Mental Health Screening

Another issue around physician oversight arises from the short-term relationships between patients and doctors. This past year, the median number of weeks that patients knew their doctors was the lowest yet — around four weeks — indicating the presence of doctor shopping. For some individuals, the physician-patient relationship was less than a week. While most people value a long-term relationship with their physicians, doctor shopping involves patients simply seeking an immediate service from the physician. Doctor shopping is especially dangerous for patients seeking assisted suicide. The doctors are chosen simply because they are willing to help kill the patient. Thus, they are less likely to accurately assess the mental health of a patient. Therefore, it is unsurprising that only two patients were referred for psychiatric treatment after requesting assisted suicide. Although the patients have asked to kill themselves, most are deemed mentally competent. In any other circumstance, a healthy patient would be immediately referred to a psychiatrist if they mentioned their desire to kill themselves. However, since assisted suicide patients are terminally ill and often elderly, they are allowed to kill themselves within days.  

Fear of Disability, Not Pain, Drives Most Requests

Assisted suicide activists typically claim that inadequate pain control is the most important reason to legalize death on demand. The DWDA report, however, reveals that the top reasons patients choose assisted suicide are related to apprehension about possible disabilities. 89% of patients claim that they fear losing autonomy or losing the ability to enjoy life. Only 37% fear loss of pain control. Loss of autonomy or enjoyment are the same issues which face the disabled community. Assisted suicide, however, encourages people, including the disabled, to die rather than to seek treatment options and resources that seek to improve their quality of life or prognosis. 

The Hidden Cost of “Safeguards”

The Oregon report provides revealing insights into the murky world of assisted suicide. It highlights the fact that even with purported “safeguards” in place, there are many unknowns with assisted suicide. Because of the nature of assisted suicide, it is nearly impossible to monitor the side effects or pressures, familial, financial or otherwise, suffered by the terminally ill. As the threat of assisted suicide rises in parts of the country, Americans United for Life will continue to fight to ensure that all life is valued, from conception to natural death. 

The post Disturbing Data: Analyzing Oregon’s 2025 Death with Dignity Act Report appeared first on Americans United for Life.

This stay was granted upon appeal by the plaintiffs, including the State of Louisiana, after the U.S. District Court the Western District of Louisiana granted standing but denied the stay, allowing the FDA six months to complete its safety review of the drug. The Fifth Circuit’s order is effective immediately, pending appeal to the Supreme Court.

John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life (AUL), stated, “In a monumental win for women across the nation, the Fifth Circuit has halted dangerous, mail-order abortion, allowing those harmed to finally experience the justice they long deserve. Americans United for Life carries confident hope this will be upheld upon likely appeal. One battle at a time, the Pro-Life Movement continues to see hard-fought victories that daily bring our nation closer to a restored culture of life.”

Sarah Zagorski, Senior Director of Public Relations and Communications for AUL, emphasized, “In the name of access, mail-order abortion was exploited by abusers and coercive partners to target women across the nation. Today, we can celebrate that the online abortion industry’s lucrative business is immediately halted, pending appeal, and women in America can rest easier tonight.”

Read the full order here.

For more information or to arrange an interview with AUL, contact Gavin Oxley at press@aul.org or 202-987-3321. 

Since 1971, Americans United for Life (AUL) has advanced the human right to life in culture, law, and policy by equipping advocates and lawmakers with the facts and strategies that change hearts and minds and protect human life. The first national pro-life organization in the country, AUL is a nonprofit, public-interest law and policy organization with a four-star rating from Charity Navigator.

The post Fifth Circuit Grants Stay in Louisiana v. FDA, Blocking Mail-Order Abortion appeared first on Americans United for Life.

The Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9-0 decision in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport, holding an overly broad subpoena against pro-life, religious pregnancy centers inflict a First Amendment injury that confers standing for the pregnancy centers to sue in federal court.‍‍¹ The decision is a great victory for First Choice, which may litigate its constitutional challenge to the subpoena once the case returns to the federal district court. Although the Supreme Court’s opinion focuses on a narrow procedural question about standing, the decision is a powerful precedent for the freedom of association in public interest advocacy which will help safeguard the work of the pro-life movement and pregnancy centers. Read more below, or click here for AUL’s full litigation analysis.

Background of First Choice’s Case

First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. is an organization of five faith-based pregnancy centers in New Jersey that has served women and their families since 1985.‍² Since First Choice believes that “life begins at conception,” the organization “does not provide abortions or refer clients to others for abortions.”‍³

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,‍⁴ New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin created a “Reproductive Rights Strike Force,” which published a “consumer alert” asserting pregnancy centers engaged in deceptive practices about abortion.‍⁵ Although the consumer alert requested the public to file complaints with the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs about specific instances of alleged deceptive practices, “[n]either that division nor the Attorney General’s office received any complaints from the public about First Choice.”‍⁶ Nevertheless, the Attorney General issued an overly broad subpoena that demanded, among other information and documents, the personal information about First Choice’s donors.‍⁷ Attorney General Platkin later asserted the subpoena would enable state officials to contact donors to determine if the pregnancy centers “could mislead donors into thinking First Choice provides abortions.”‍⁸ 

First Choice filed a lawsuit in federal district court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, challenging the subpoena on First Amendment grounds.‍⁹ Under Section 1983, “any person who, under color of state law, deprives another of his federal constitutional rights,” may file a lawsuit in federal district court.‍¹⁰ First Choice asserted that the subpoena infringed upon its First Amendment freedom of association, which protected the pregnancy centers’ right to work with donors to further their pro-life mission. Since the subpoena required the pregnancy centers to hand over the donors’ personal information to an Attorney General that is hostile to pro-life work, the demands deterred donors from associating with the pregnancy centers.‍¹¹

Read more about the decision of SCOTUS in the full litigation analysis here.

1. 608 U.S. ___, slip op. at 22 (2026). ︎
2. Id. at 1. ︎
3. Id. ︎
4. 597 U.S. 215 (2022). ︎
5. First Choice, 608 U.S. ___, slip op. at 1–2. ︎
6. Id. at 2. ︎
7. Id. at 2–3. ︎
8. Id. at 3. ︎
9. Id. ︎
10. Id. ︎
11. Id. at 4. ︎

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By ruling in favor of the pregnancy center organization, the court will allow First Choice to first challenge a subpoena served by the New Jersey Attorney General in federal court. In this case, First Choice sought review of the subpoena in federal court, seeking to vindicate the organization’s First Amendment right to serve women in need without suffering politically motivated searches.

Americans United for Life (AUL) previously submitted an amicus brief in this case, supporting First Choice. 

John Mize, CEO of AUL, added, “Americans United for Life is hopeful this is the first step in an even greater victory for First Choice. Pregnancy centers provide essential social, and often medical, care to women with unexpected life circumstances and should not operate in fear of state officials wrongfully wielding the power of their offices against them. First Choice must be afforded the same First Amendment rights as any other organization, and today’s ruling begins to pave a path to that end.” 

Carolyn McDonnell, Litigation Counsel for AUL, stated, “The Supreme Court recognizes that federal law guarantees a plaintiff may bring a First Amendment lawsuit in federal court. This is a great victory for First Choice and enables the pregnancy center to vindicate its First Amendment rights to speak and associate to advance its pro-life mission of supporting women and their families.”

For more information or to arrange an interview with AUL, contact Gavin Oxley at press@aul.org or 202-987-3321. 

Since 1971, Americans United for Life (AUL) has advanced the human right to life in culture, law, and policy by equipping advocates and lawmakers with the facts and strategies that change hearts and minds and protect human life. The first national pro-life organization in the country, AUL is a nonprofit, public-interest law and policy organization with a four-star rating from Charity Navigator.

The post Victory for Pregnancy Centers: SCOTUS Rules Against NJ AG in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport appeared first on Americans United for Life.