For people who move or travel a lot, a virtual mailbox is a way to check their mail online. If an item is critical, they forward it to their current location.

For Wells, founder of the online abortion site Plan C, which tells women how to find the abortion pill, it’s a potential workaround to state laws restricting access.

Using dried garbanzo beans and old pill bottles, Wells tested whether a virtual mailbox set up in a state like California or New York — which allow abortion pills to be prescribed through a telehealth appointment — could make its way to a woman in a state like Texas or Oklahoma that restrict access.

The answer was yes.