Open Public Record Act Request Proves New Jersey Attorney General Collaborated with Planned Parenthood to Attack Pregnancy Resource Centers

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin

By Marie Tasy, Executive Director, New Jersey Right to Life August 12, 2024

A recent Op-ed by a Wall Street Journal Editorial editor confirms that New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin is working side-by-side with Planned Parenthood to harass and malign the state’s Pregnancy Resource Centers.

In her Op-ed –“New Jersey Harasses Pregnancy Resource Centers”–Sierra Dawn McClain, the assistant editorial features editor at the Wall Street Journal, claims the “emails obtained through a public records request show that the attorney general’s office asked Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, to preview and edit the draft consumer alert before it was issued – a clear conflict of interest.”  She goes on to say, “In addition to slamming pregnancy centers, the consumer alert urged women seeking abortions to check out Planned Parenthood’s website.”  She also noted that “the Attorney General’s office and Planned Parenthood declined to comment on the collaboration.”

Platkin’s involvement came as no surprise to us here at New Jersey Right to Life [NJRTL.] Platkin served as pro-abortion Governor Phil Murphy’s Chief Counsel. He was serving as the Acting Attorney General when Murphy nominated him to become the Attorney General in February of 2022.  At that time, a letter signed by 51 Democratic women leaders in support of Platkin’s nomination was issued citing his “deep commitment to reproductive rights.”

NJRTL also crafted a letter signed by 183 Pro-Life Women sent to New Jersey Senators asking them to oppose his nomination.  I also testified against his nomination before the Senate Judiciary Committee.   The letter and my testimony questioned Platkin’s ability to ensure “equality for all” given his deep commitment to abortion on demand and those that promote it.

The letter also mentioned his participation in harmful government policies including the enforcement of Governor Murphy’s Executive Orders which led to the deaths of over 8,000 deaths of our most vulnerable residents in nursing homes during the COVID debacle.

Less than one month after the Supreme Court issued their decision in the Dobbs case overturning Roe, our concerns were validated when then-Acting Attorney General Platkin announced the establishment of a Reproductive Rights Task Force, which promised to use millions in taxpayer dollars to employ the full extent of law enforcement to protect and promote abortion throughout New Jersey. Platkin’s nomination was approved by the state Senate in a Democrat-controlled majority vote in September of 2022.

Then in December of 2022, Platkin issued a Consumer Alert against New Jersey Crisis Pregnancy Centers that used many of the same often repeated pro-abortion lies we have seen time and time again about these pregnancy resource centers.  This prompted attorneys for a Consortium of New Jersey pregnancy centers to file an Open Public Record Act Request with the Attorney General’s office. They sought information on investigations, emails, or other record that drove officials to issue the alert against Pregnancy Centers.

The Attorney General’s office denied some of the record requests so the Consortium filed a lawsuit requesting access. The Judge rejected many of the reasons for denial and ordered the Attorney General to produce most of the documents and pay the majority of the Consortium’s legal expenses connected with the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General remains unabashed in his insatiable crusade to shut down Pregnancy Centers.  His most recent target is First Choice Women’s Resource Centers who he served with a subpoena demanding a broad range of documents, going back over 10 years.

Like so many wonderful Pregnancy centers, First Choice has provided support free of charge to tens of thousands of women facing unplanned pregnancies since they opened 39 years ago.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) are challenging the subpoena and have noted that Platkin “has never cited any complaint or other substantive evidence of wrongdoing to justify his demands.”

NJRTL was proud to become an amici in an Amicus Brief filed by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) that pointedly said,  “At issue in this case is an unabashed intimidation and targeting of pro-life pregnancy centers on the part of the New Jersey Attorney General through government action.”

The New Jersey Attorney General is not the only government official trying to shut down Pregnancy Centers.  Most recently, Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-5), who has ambitions to run for Governor, has stood outside several Pregnancy Centers and vowed to shut them down.

Gottheimer has called them “brainwashing cult clinics.”  Efforts are also currently underway on the federal level and in other states by pro-abortion lawmakers and Attorney Generals to shut down Pregnancy Centers.

Planned Parenthood is leading the charge against Pregnancy Centers and they have the support of some very powerful elected officials who are doing their bidding.  Why?

Because every time a pregnant woman is empowered by the help of a Pregnancy Resource Center and chooses to have her baby, Planned Parenthood loses money.

They bemoan the fact that they are outnumbered by Pregnancy Resource Centers by nearly three times the number of Planned Parenthood health centers which they label “Antiabortion Centers” or AACs.

A recent report from 2022 showed that New Jersey Pregnancy Centers provided materials and services to 23,288 women, men. and youth valued at $3.6 Million.  These services included over $2 million in medical services, all provide free of charge.

Unlike New Jersey Planned Parenthood clinics which have been the recipient of over $200 Million in taxpayer dollars by the Murphy administration, none of these centers reported receiving state or federal funding.

ACLJ’s statement in their Amicus Brief summarizes our concerns precisely when they state, that the kind of targeting to which First Women’s Resource Centers, Inc., has been subject is far from an isolated event. On the contrary, it is the product of increasing weaponized state action taken to unconstitutionally shut down the morally and religiously motivated speech and conduct in which these organizations engage.

As pro-life citizens, we must stand with the Pregnancy Resource Centers and fight these unjust, politically and financially motivated attacks against them.