ENDEAVOUR FORUM NEWSLETTER No. 129, FEBRUARY 2008
BOOKSHELF
“REDEEMING GRIEF – Abortion and it’s pain” 
by Anne R. Lastman.
Published by Victims of Abortion, P.O. Box 6094, Vermont South, Vic. 3133, Australia.
Ph + 61 3 9887 7669.
196 pp, $29.95 plus $3.45 postage.
Reviewed by Mrs. Madge Fahy.
Having awaited the release of this book, I am delighted to present this brief review. I have kept it brief as I believe that it is a book that needs to be read in its entirety. I commend it to you.
The book tells the complete story of abortion. The author handles the issue with a firm conviction but a compassionate heart. It is interspersed with some testimonies by those who have suffered from the aftermath of abortion. Their stories are heart wrenching.
To quote the author: “This book is about abortion, pain, sorrow, regret, but over and above this, a grief, which if accepted and handled well, becomes a ‘ redeeming grief’. Hand in hand with the redeeming grief goes the mercy of God.
We are taken back in time to pagan Rome where a father had the right to kill his child. Today many fathers take the mother of his child to the abortion clinic (often forcibly) and wait as their child is destroyed, while other fathers are not given a say or a choice in the killing of their child. Yet, as the author points out that within the abortion industry, everyone seems to have a right except that of the child whose own right to life, selfhood, and self determination are summarily snuffed out.
So many men today seem to have lost the ability to be ‘protectors’. This book provides a very clear explanation in that abortion has weakened ‘maleness’. As the author states: “In a society where millions of infants are aborted annually, then the fabric of this society is surely corrupted and into this corrupted society, “fatherhood” must have its blueprint perverted. Abortion is the abandoning or rejection of mothering and fathering.”
In referring to Humanae Vitae, the encyclical by Pope Paul VI, as the document that alerted modern society to the fact that the new morality was seeking to eliminate and dethrone God as King and enthrone the creature as king, Anne provides the reader with a very clear picture of what the Pope was telling us, that is, in removing the sacred from creation we would end up being idolaters of the worst kind. His prophetic warning fell upon many deaf ears and we as a society are now paying the price.
Having listened to many women from ‘Silent No More’ both at the United Nations in New York and those here in Australia speak about their lives prior to and following abortions, one realises that so many of these women had absolutely no choice but to abort. Governments and society have failed and continue to fail both the mother and her child.
The author gently guides and counsels abortive women and men to recognise and name their child, to ask for forgiveness, seek redeeming grief which leads them on the way home to their Creator. As she states, it is another way home and it can be very good.
Catholic readers can be assured this book comes with a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur.
Madge Fahy is the General President of the Catholic Women’s League of Victoria & Wagga Wagga Inc and National International Secretary of the Catholic Women’s League of Australia
"The Feminist Crusades: Making Myths & Building Bureaucracies"
by Frank S. Zepezauer
Published by AuthorHouse, www.authorhouse.com
Publisher’s Press Release:
Author Frank S. Zepezauer examines 45 years of feminist political campaigns and the "questionable information and biased opinion" he says fueled them in his new book, "The Feminist Crusades." As he dissects campaigns to make changes in health care, education and the workplace as well as campaigns to decrease domestic abuse, rape and sexual harassment, the underlying theory behind his analysis is the "questionable information" behind them. He says, "the alacrity with which feminists invent some facts and reject or accept others on the basis of their emotional appeal is illusion in the guise of intellectual investigation".
From the Gender Equity in Education Bill to the Violence Against Women Act, this legal overview shows how bureaucratic women's associations have driven public policy through these campaigns. In the 77-page appendix titled "The Feminist Establishment", the feminist bureaucracy is exposed in depth.
Zepezauer also explores the issues surrounding the "men's movement", including men who are wrongly accused of physical abuse and rape as well as issues of fathers' rights in the wake of divorce.
"Radical feminism is a totalitarian ideology", he writes. "It sees a civilization corrupted at its roots by a tenacious evil called the 'patriarchy', a male dominated system which assigns social duties and status according to gender, and it favours in all cases the male gender. Because this evil contaminates all aspects of society - the government, the church, the justice system, the educational establishment, the media, the kinship system, the moral code, social customs, rules of etiquette, the symbol and language systems, even the construction of the individual consciousness - all must be changed. Thus the feminist revolutionary army divided itself into specialized battalions each of which was commissioned to transform a particular aspect of society".
Zepezauer received a master’s degree in English at the University of Chicago in 1954. He taught high school English in California for 32 years and served on the Bay Area Writers' Project for l0 years. He has published more than 50 articles in professional and commercial journals, and is a former vice-president of the Men's Defence Association and a contributing editor for their newspaper, The Liberator. He and his wife, Joan, have four children and four grandchildren.
Member Organisation, World Council for Life and Family
NGO in Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC of the UN