Abortion clinic staff in U.S. struggle with mental health after Roe v. Wade overturn

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade, workers at U.S. abortion are feeling fear and stress as they try to continue their practice and and care for their patients.

Danielle Maness has squeezed the hands of hundreds of anxious patients lying on tables in the procedure room, now empty. She’s recorded countless vital signs and delivered scores of snacks to the recovery area, now silent.

Peering into each darkened room at West Virginia ‘s only abortion clinic, the chief nurse wondered whether she’d ever treat patients here for abortion care again.

“It literally just sickens me, and we don’t know what their futures hold for them,” Maness said of the residents who rely on the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia. “It’s the kind of heartbreak that’s difficult to put into words. There are all these `what- ifs.”’

The waiting room should have been filling up with patients on two days last week, when the clinic reserves all slots for abortion appointments. But since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade days earlier and ruled that states can ban abortion, the clinic was forced to suspend the procedures because of an 1800s-era state law banning them. The ACLU of West Virginia filed a lawsuit on behalf of the clinic, asking that the law be declared unenforceable so staff can immediately resume abortions. Other states are in various stages of legal limbo.

Nationwide, workers at clinics that shuttered abortion services are feeling fear and stress as they try to pick up the pieces and chart a path forward. At the West Virginia center, the days following the historic court ruling brought on a different kind of grief for staff as their new reality set in, one Maness said will linger long after the initial trauma of the decision.

The conversations with frantic patients that first day play on an inescapable loop in her head.

“I don’t think any of us can block it out,” she said. “It’s constantly on our minds.”

Like many clinics that perform abortions, the facility did not offer the procedure daily. Several days of the week are dedicated to routine gynecological care — cervical exams, cancer screenings — mostly for low-income patients on Medicaid with nowhere else to go. The resolve to continue that work has buoyed employees.