The Supreme Court will hear a case next term that deals with an investigation by New Jersey’s attorney general into a chain of pregnancy centers that seek to dissuade women from having abortions.

The justices said Monday that they will weigh whether First Choice Women’s Resource Centers Inc., which operates five clinics in the state, can go to federal court to fight a state-level subpoena from New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin that seeks a list of its donors.

First Choice accuses Platkin (D) of “hostility toward pregnancy centers” and says his subpoena, which would cover nearly 5,000 donations, chills the First Amendment rights of the clinic operators and their donors to engage in activities that express their beliefs.

Platkin began investigating First Choice in 2023 for allegedly deceptive practices targeting donors and clients. Critics say the clinics are among nearly 3,000 pregnancy crisis centers across the United States that are made to resemble abortion clinics but offer false or incomplete information in an effort to discourage abortions.

“The State noted medical statements on Petitioner’s websites that may be misleading or untrue,” Platkin wrote in a filing with the Supreme Court.

First Choice denies those allegations and says it is up front about its antiabortion views. The clinic, which is a nonprofit organization, offers services including free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, sexually transmitted disease scans and counseling.

Platkin issued a consumer alert about pregnancy crisis centers in 2022 and followed up with an investigation of First Choice. After receiving the subpoena for donor names, First Choice went to federal court seeking to block the request.

The district court twice ruled that First Choice’s challenge could not be heard in federal court before a state court enforced the subpoena. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit affirmed that decision in a split ruling before First Choice appealed to the Supreme Court.

First Choice also contends that the existence of the subpoena — whether it has been enforced or not — has a chilling effect on clinic donors. First Choice noted that donors’ names are not made public because abortion is such a politically charged subject and because pregnancy centers have become targets of abortion rights activists, particularly after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion in 2022.

First Choice called Platkin’s subpoena an example of state attorneys general using their investigative powers to harass political opponents.

“State law authorizes attorneys general to issue investigative demands based on a subjective suspicion of wrongdoing or a subjective determination that the demand is in the public interest,” First Choice wrote in its petition to the Supreme Court. “In recent years, state attorneys general have made increasing use of these broad investigative powers — sometimes employing them to target political opponents.”

In a separate decision Monday also dealing with abortion, the justices ordered a New York court to take a fresh look at whether certain religious groups should be exempt from a state regulation requiring health insurance plans to cover abortion.

The Supreme Court also said it would take a case next term that will determine when a defendant can seek to have a matter being adjudicated in state courts removed to the federal system. The case deals with a Louisiana county’s lawsuit against oil companies for alleged environmental damage caused by oil extraction activities along the Gulf Coast during World War II.