Web3 activists fight for reproductive rights with NFTs, DAOs and protests

cointelegraph.com:

Web3 community members are fighting back against the United States Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

On June 24, 2022, the landmark court case that previously assured the right to have an abortion was overturned, sparking a backlash among reproductive rights activists in the U.S.

Some activists have turned to Web3 solutions, creating decentralized autonomous orginzations (DAOs) and nonfungible token (NFT) projects focused on raising awareness for women’s reproductive rights.

One of the earliest of these efforts was demonstrated by Nadya Tolokonnikova, a member of the performance activist group Pussy Riot. Tolokonnikova told Cointelegraph that about three weeks ago, members of Pussy Riot and UnicornDAO — a group redistributing wealth and visibility for women-identified and LGBTQ+ people — staged a protest at the Texas State Capitol in response to the leaked draft opinion demonstrating the Supreme Court’s eventual decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. She said:

“The protest was called ‘Matriarchy Now.’ We dropped a giant 45-foot banner from the third floor of the Texas Capitol building in Austin displaying this message. We then minted this an NFT, which was the first political performance art piece we used to raise funds for women’s reproductive rights.”

Yet, this effort was just a start for Pussy Riot and UnicornDAO. Tolokonnikova said that the groups launched another NFT collection on July 7 to further support reproductive rights — this time in response to the official overturning of Roe v. Wade. Known as Proof of Protest, John Caldwell, co-founder of UnicornDAO, told Cointelegraph that this NFT collection allows users to “buy feminism” in order to demonstrate their “proof of protest.” 

According to Tolokonnikova,