Will cryptocurrencies play some role in funding abortion access?

“With privacy, it’s like, once it’s out, it’s out,” Professor Meiklejohn said.

Rebecca Gomperts, a physician and director of Women on Waves, a nonprofit that provides resources for people seeking abortions, found this to be the case when she was trying to set up a cryptocurrency wallet. his own death. “It has the same checking requirements as a regular bank account, where you have to provide ID and other information,” she said.

She could see how anonymous transactions could attract abortion providers, whose work could soon make them legitimate targets. However, she said, “I haven’t found a cryptocurrency where you can do that.”

Legal scholars do not believe that cryptocurrencies will shield patients in most cases. Rachel Rebouché, interim dean of Temple University’s Beasley School of Law and the author of an upcoming paper called “The New Abortion Battlefield.”

Kimberly Mutcherson, dean and professor of law at Rutgers Law School, who has focused on reproductive rights. (According to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group that advocates for abortion rights, in the first three months of this year, 22 states introduced more than 100 restrictions on abortion pills that were approved by the Food and Drug Administration. approve).

However, organizations like Planned Parenthood have remained open about how they can raise and distribute funds.

Alexis McGill Johnson, the organization’s president and chief executive officer, said Planned Parenthood is “looking at a few things” in the crypto space but would not disclose details.

“The bottom line is that all options are on the table,” she said.