\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWith privacy, it\u2019s like, once it\u2019s out, it\u2019s out,\u201d Professor Meiklejohn said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, a physician and the director of Women on Waves, a nonprofit that provides resources for abortion seekers, found this to be the case when she tried setting up her own crypto wallet. \u201cIt had exactly the same diligence requests as a normal bank account, where you have to provide IDs and other information,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She could see how anonymous transactions might appeal to abortion providers, whose work could soon turn them into legal targets. But, she said, \u201cI haven\u2019t found a cryptocurrency where you can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Legal scholars are not convinced that cryptocurrencies would shield patients in most cases. Abortion bans \u201cwill cover everything, whether you pay with cash or crypto,\u201d said Rachel Rebouch\u00e9, the interim dean at the Temple University Beasley School of Law and an author of a forthcoming paper called \u201cThe New Abortion Battleground<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf abortion is illegal in your state \u2014 it doesn\u2019t matter whether you get a surgical abortion, a medication abortion, whether you self-manage your abortion \u2014 if it\u2019s illegal, it\u2019s illegal,\u201d said Kimberly Mutcherson, a dean and professor of law at Rutgers Law School who has focused on reproductive rights. (In the first three months of this year, 22 states introduced more than 100 restrictions<\/a> on abortion pills approved by the Food and Drug Administration, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group that supports abortion rights.)<\/p>\n Still, organizations like Planned Parenthood are keeping an open mind about how they might raise and distribute funds.<\/p>\n Alexis McGill Johnson, the organization\u2019s president and chief executive, said Planned Parenthood was \u201clooking into a number of things\u201d in the realm of cryptocurrencies but would not divulge details.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bottom line is all of the options are on the table,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n