The fine art of saving lives

Mobile Chapter member is a local pro-life hero

Dr. Phillip Madonia sees dozens of women contemplating abortion every year. Their situations may vary, but their desperation is always the same. What makes Madonia stand out is his success rate in changing women’s minds. “I’ve been told that in one year I helped 75 women choose not to abort,” he said. “I have been doing this now for 26 years.”

Pro-life advocates

One factor that helps Madonia — a Legatus member from Mobile — is an Alabama law mandating ultrasounds and fetal development counseling for all abortion-minded women. However, Madonia goes a step further: He assures them that he will take care of them, no matter what their problem is.

“I remember the woman who came to me after she had been advised by her doctor to have an abortion because she had previously had a blood clot,” he explained. “She was scared and upset.”

Madonia told her that she had a complicated pregnancy because of the medicines and testing for the clot.

“I told her that we would do the hard work and have a baby. We did and she did. It was a particular thrill when she delivered. The frightened woman was now a thrilled mother.What an affirmation!” he said.

Madonia and his wife Deborah have been pro-life advocates throughout their 31- year marriage. They both volunteer for a local crisis pregnancy center called 2B Choices for Women, he as a physician and counselor, she as a member of 2B’s advisory board.

Though Madonia didn’t decide to become a doctor with a pro-life ministry in mind, the abortion issue kept surfacing.

“When I applied for my residency in Ob-Gyn, I chose not to apply to hospitals that staff abortion services,” he said. “Performing abortions in training hospitals around the country is a practice that has endured.”

In 1996, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education established guidelines mandating that residency education must include experience with induced abortion, said Madonia, citing the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

“As recently as 2006, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists encouraged medical schools to include abortion services as a part of the training for all medical schools,” Madonia said.

“A few doctors are actively pro-choice and some do not take a stance at all,” said Madonia, “but many are afraid to say they are pro-life because they are afraid they will be marginalized.”

Holy Spirit counseling

However, being openly pro-life hasn’t hurt Madonia’s career. He is president of Mobile Ob-Gyn with seven other pro-life doctors.

Madonia does not have a set routine when he counsels women, except for praying to the Holy Spirit for guidance.

“Not all women are the same. They all have different problems and fears,” he explained. “I ask the Holy Spirit to tell me what this particular woman in front of me needs.”

He has never seen a woman who wanted to “kill her baby.” Most simply don’t want to raise a child. They try to convince themselves that what they’re carrying is not a baby, Madonia said.

“I talk about the baby like it’s a living person,” he said. “I talk about the pain abortion brings that will never go away.”

Jerryann Boden, director of 2B Choices for Women, said they send Madonia the hard cases. Since the women all have to do an ultrasound anyway, they all agree to go.

“The best thing about Madonia is that he is usually in four days a week and we can send a woman the same day or the next,” she said.

“He does this with a passion because of his beliefs about abortion,” she added. “Having access to the ultrasound makes him very effective. He’s been a Godsend.”

Mary Cunningham Agee, a member of Legatus’s Napa Chapter and founder of the Nurturing Network, vouches for the importance of ultrasound technology.

“With an ultrasound, the bottom line is, it can’t be theoretical anymore,” she said. “The other side is all about rhetoric and speaking about ‘choice.’ Choice sounds great. We all like choices. But the distortion of choice is license. Once you look at an ultrasound, it’s a human being with a beating heart.”

Madonia’s wife, Deborah, is an adjunct theology lecturer at nearby Spring Hill College in Mobile. She believes her husband’s approach is what makes him so effective.

“I think John Paul II said it best: We must all be courageously pro-woman. We must become a community that is supportive of both mother and baby.Women must know that they are not alone,” she said.

Agee couldn’t agree more.

“One thing I hear in every inquiry — besides the need for resources — is the question: Will I be alone? These women need to know that they will not be alone,” she said.

There are thousands of pro-life counselors across the country, but pro-life doctors are essential to saving unborn children.

“When a woman calls, she’s not looking for a philosophical conversation,” said Agee. “She has immediate problems and needs. One of them is medical. A doctor will be a huge player one way or the other.”

Madonia sticks to the facts when speaking to patients. He tells women about the life they carry, which will grow up to be a child, a teenager, an adult. But most of all, he tells them that they are not alone. He tells them he will walk with them every step of the way. And he means it.

Sabrina Arena-Ferrisi is a staff writer for Legatus Magazine.