Kelsey knew something was wrong when the woman who had just administered her pregnancy test began to pray over her. Minutes earlier, the college sophomore had walked into the Pregnancy Resource Clinic in State College, Pennsylvania, just half a mile outside the Penn State campus. She’d been greeted by a friendly, solicitous staff, but had been unnerved by their refusal to even mention abortion as an option. When her test came back negative and the administrator began an invocation for her abstinence, however, her stomach sank. “I left feeling deceived and ashamed,” said Kelsey, who asked that I not publish her last name. “Every girl who’s been in that situation would immediately think to go to the Pregnancy Resource Clinic. How would we know that we were being deceived?”

A lawsuit over that very question, which now stands before the Supreme Court, is the latest chess move in the culture wars that have come to define Donald Trump’s presidency. One of the petitioners in the case, State College Pregnancy Resource Clinic, is an affiliate of Care Net, one of the two major Christian organizations that foster a national network of crisis pregnancy centers, or C.P.C.s. Though their outward appearance is disconcertingly similar, unlike health clinics connected to Planned Parenthood, crisis pregnancy centers are designed with the express purpose of dissuading women from getting abortions, and may not even employ licensed medical professionals. This, according to the state of California, is deceptive. In 2015, lawmakers passed a bill requiring the state’s 200-odd crisis pregnancy centers to post notices informing women about the services they do and don’t offer. The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), an organization that provides legal services for C.P.C.s, responded by suing California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard opening arguments from both sides, in what could be a precedent-setting moment across the country for cases involving speech and abortion.

The conservative movement’s ties to crisis pregnancy centers run deep; when he was governor of Indiana, Mike Pence infamously awarded a $3.5 million government contract to a network of centers operating within the state. So it is perhaps no surprise that the Trump administration’s fingerprints are all over NIFLA v. Becerra. NIFLA’s defense is being spearheaded by the Alliance Defending Freedom (A.D.F.), the Christian organization that most recently took the lead in defending a Colorado baker who refused to serve a gay couple. According to The Nation, in 2017 Trump nominated at least four federal judges with A.D.F. ties, and the organization boasts links to at least two of Trump’s top lawyers. His solicitor general, Noel Francisco, was reportedly listed as an “A.D.F.-allied attorney” on two of the organization’s press releases. (The A.D.F. later called the designation a “mistake” and subsequently wiped Francisco’s name from both releases.)

Attorney General Jeff Sessions reportedly joined the A.D.F.’s private strategy session last summer, and according to BuzzFeed News, federal lawyers have approached A.D.F. staff for advice on “at least three occasions.” Sessions met with A.D.F. officials for a series of “listening sessions” last October, during which he professed to be “seeking suggestions regarding the areas of federal protection for religious liberty most in need of clarification or guidance.” Shortly thereafter, the Justice Department issued a directive to government agencies on how to interpret federal religious-liberty protections. “I commend the president for taking another step to honor his campaign promise to make religious liberty his ‘first priority,’” A.D.F. President Mike Farris, who is arguing on behalf of NIFLA before the Supreme Court, said in a statement at the time.