Dr Mary Walsh on faith, family and fertility awareness

Dr Mary Walsh has been a medical doctor for 47 years. In that time, she has become a passionate advocate for teaching and sharing the joys of fertility awareness methods (to avoid or achieve pregnancy), and restorative reproductive medicine among her patients. She was married for 29 years to Prof Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, who sadly died in 2014, and is mother to four children, and grandmother to two. Here, Mary shares some of the many facets of her rich and life-giving work, and her desire to see fertility awareness and restorative reproductive medicine continue to grow in Australia.

Mary Walsh was born and baptised on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Her father, John, was a naval captain and had been in charge of the naval base there for a number of years. The family then moved to Brisbane (Mary is the youngest of three children), where she attended St Agatha’s Primary School and St Rita’s Secondary College, both run by the Presentation Sisters. She says family and daily life in the 1950s and 60s was very much grounded in Catholic faith. ‘You went to Mass, you went to confession, and you prayed. That was all part of the ritual of life.’

Tragically, when Mary was seven, her mother, Lorna, died. Lorna had a recurrence of a benign brain tumour and had travelled to Melbourne for surgery and suffered post-operative complications. ‘It was devastating, but through the example my father gave in his quiet strength and keeping going,’ says Mary, ‘it was obvious that his faith was giving him that strength in that time of loss and helped him to be able to carry on.’

Embryonic life fascinated me, and that sense of how unjust it was that the unborn were not regarded with importance, that women were given insufficient options and support.

As the prospect of university approached, and with one of her brothers already having left home to join the Christian Brothers, Mary considered her own future. She was interested in the arts, English and literature, and thought teaching or social work would be a good career path. However, she eventually decided on medicine, having done well in her science subjects, and realising medicine would allow her to help people ‘more broadly’ and could incorporate both teaching and social work.

Mary graduated from the University of Queensland with her medical degree in 1976, but not before she’d encountered a number of social and bioethical issues and groups that changed the way she’d approach her medical career and, later, her personal life. ‘While at university, I’d heard about abortion, and I remember thinking, “That’s really sad.” Embryonic life fascinated me, and that sense of how unjust it was that the unborn were not regarded with importance, that women were given insufficient options and support, and that people were pushing for this.

‘So when a friend, who was also a medical student, told me about a university pro-life group, I thought, “That’s it. I’ve got to join that.” It was one of those moments where you know, that’s what you have to do.’ Mary was very active in the University of Queensland Pro-Life Group throughout her university years. She continued her involvement with pro-life and pregnancy help groups following her graduation, as she set off on her medical career in general practice. At the same time, she started presenting lectures around bioethical and pro-life issues. ‘I was quite steeped in all of that,’ says Mary. Meanwhile, her older brother had developed a malignant brain tumour and her father laryngeal cancer. Her father passed away in 1979, and Mary continued to care for her brother.

In 1982, she met the man who was to become her husband. ‘A friend went to a pro-life conference in Adelaide,’ Mary says, ‘and she said she saw this philosopher giving a lecture and thought of me. She invited him to speak at a pro-life conference in Brisbane, and they asked me if I’d billet him in my home. I remember thinking, “He’s a philosopher. He’s got to be old!” Needless to say, he wasn’t. And that’s how we met.’ Mary married Prof Nicholas Tonti-Filippini in 1985 and moved back to his hometown of Melbourne to start their new life together.

Mary and Nicholas were open to having children straight away, and so the ‘little chapter about natural family planning’ that Mary had read during her university studies suddenly became a lot more relevant. ‘At that time, natural family planning wasn’t presented in a very attractive way,’ she says. ‘You had to take your temperature every morning, and it was all a bit tedious, really. There wasn’t much knowledge around.’

If you’re quite firm that there is an alternative which is a good thing and it’s enhancing of healthy relationships and empowering people, then women and couples are open to this.

Fortunately, Nick took Mary to a lecture in Melbourne being given by Doctors John and Lyn Billings, the founders of the Billings Ovulation Method, a way of tracking fertility through the changes in the cervical mucus during the ovulation or menstrual cycle. ‘It was another one of those moments,’ says Mary ‘where I was listening to Dr John and all of a sudden, he wasn’t just talking about the Billings Ovulation Method; he was talking about the whole combination of profound respect for the embryo, and respect for women and men, and the origins of life, as in the way life is generated. It all came together as an integrated vision of human sexuality, which made huge sense. So I rang them up and became involved in the Billings organisation.’ Mary began to be involved in their secondary school educational program and became an accredited Billings Ovulation Method teacher.

If you’re quite firm that there is an alternative which is a good thing and it’s enhancing of healthy relationships and empowering people, then women and couples are open to this.’

This integrated vision of human sexuality, and the dignity and respect of the human person from conception to death, underpinned Mary’s philosophy in life and in work. With Nick, they had four children, and she balanced motherhood and her faith life with work in general practice, where she integrated and shared what she was learning with her patients.

‘I was trying to encourage any couple that was looking at contraceptives to think more broadly about other options,’ she says. ‘Most people were very happy to hear of an alternative, and that’s the good thing about having the knowledge of fertility awareness: you have a positive alternative to offer. If you’re quite firm that there is an alternative which is a good thing and it’s enhancing of healthy relationships and empowering people, then women and couples are open to this.’

Mary says she’s been saddened over the years to see the practice of medicine ‘losing its respect for the embryo and the origins of life’.

‘I think there is a challenge for doctors not to lose sight of the personhood of the embryo and the meaning of motherhood and the needs of women. Obviously there have been good health innovations over the years, but in terms of women’s health, there is a huge emphasis on chemical and technological interventions.

‘Women are not presented with all of the information and all of the alternatives. They’re not really told that fertility awareness is something that is reliable and that is good for you. And so rather than be empowered, women can be exploited.

‘It’s very rare for couples to go to a fertility expert and be adequately informed about their times of fertility and all of the options that are available to them. So it’s important that women and couples are offered full information so they can make informed choices about their fertility options.’ This is key to Mary’s work.

In 2012, Mary established the Fertility Assessment Clinic as part of her medical practice, Manningham General Practice in Lower Templestowe, in Melbourne’s outer east. It is a clinic that offers health and fertility assessments to couples looking to become pregnant or thinking about pregnancy in the future, to couples struggling with infertility, including those who may have tried IVF, and to those with reproductive health concerns. The clinic was opened in conjunction with a number of Billings Ovulation Method teachers, but all methods of fertility awareness are discussed and offered.

Fertility Awareness Methods (FAMs) teach a woman to identify times of infertility, and the short time of possible fertility, in her cycle, through tracking recognisable physical signs and symptoms. This knowledge also assists in recognising any cycle abnormalities that could indicate a need for medical investigation. Essentially, the cycle is a ‘barometer of health’. Restorative Reproductive Medicine (RRM) aims to identify underlying causes of sub-fertility or reproductive health issues and correct these, rather than bypass or suppress them.

‘Opening this clinic and offering these services has been one of the highlights of my career,’ says Mary.

Another important development was the establishment of the first National Fertility Conference in 2014. ‘Nick was a great promoter of fertility awareness methods,’ says Mary. ‘Through the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, where he was Associate Dean and Head of Bioethics at the time, he developed a course called “The Theology and Practice of Natural Family Planning”, bringing in the three major accredited fertility awareness methods—Sympto-Thermal, Creighton Fertility Care and the Billings Ovulation Method. He had the idea to bring them all together, including doctors involved in restorative reproductive medicine, in one place to discuss the important issues and share information. Thus the National Fertility Conferences began.’

Sadly, and unexpectedly, Nick died several months after that first Conference, after many years of living with the complications of chronic renal failure. He was 58 years old. ‘After Nick died, I wondered if everybody would want to keep it going,’ says Mary. ‘Fortunately, everybody was keen, given how important it was.’

There is something better on offer that’s uplifting, empowering and which is a good in itself. But it needs to be better promoted and accepted, so that’s our aim!

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Australasian Institute of Restorative Reproductive Medicine (AIRRM) National Fertility Conference. This year’s conference was held in Melbourne in February and again brought together those working in fertility awareness organisations in Australia with medical and allied health professionals and others with a common interest in this field. The work centres on the theme ‘Restoring Health, Restoring Hope’.

Mary hopes the number of restorative reproductive medical practitioners in this area grows, along with awareness and knowledge of natural family planning and fertility awareness methods. Though medical practitioner numbers in the field are low, she says, ‘it’s wonderful to see the enthusiasm that the younger doctors and fertility awareness educators have—they’re so inspiring.

‘It’s important that we continue to be seen to be offering something that is of value and that is good, and which encourages human flourishing. There is something better on offer that’s uplifting, empowering and which is a good in itself. But it needs to be better promoted and accepted, so that’s our aim!’

In having experienced love and having experienced loss, you value those experiences and what they teach you and what they show you.

At the recent conference, Mary was pleased to present the 2024 Prof Nicholas Tonti Filippini Memorial Bioethics Scholarship to Dr Felicity Roux PhD, from Perth, for her contribution to the field of fertility awareness education.

While there has been much loss in Mary’s life, there have also been many riches. She says, ‘It was an enormous privilege to meet Nick and to witness his incredible passion for the goodness of life and his understanding of philosophy and theology and the pursuit of wisdom.

‘I was incredibly blessed to meet him and then to be able to be with him for all those years and raise a family. I think we had the same vision of how we wanted to live our lives in faith and in witness to God’s love. And we were blessed to have our own children, too.

‘In having experienced love and having experienced loss, you value those experiences and what they teach you and what they show you. You might not perhaps at the time, but when you reflect back on it, it makes you very grateful for those opportunities to learn and grow, and to understand more fully, God’s love and the human condition.’