A woman who willingly had intercourse with her spiritual advisor/rabbi/kabbalist - is she now prohibited to her husband?

Binyan Tzion Rav Ettlinger

In view of a number of instances where a married woman going to a rabbi is advised by the rabbi to have intercourse with him and he says it is permitted - is she prohibited to her husband?

This is not simply a case that the husband is told not to believe her and therefore he can stay married to her (Igros Moshe (E.H. III 16). Nor is it considered rape as it is if she were a child - since she was fully compliant. In short is there a heter for her to remain with her husband because her motivation was not to sin or to rebel against her husband - but rather because she thinks it is a mitzva?

Such a case was dealt with by the Binyan Tzion (154) and other rabbis about hundred and fifty years ago. The ruling of the Binyan Tzion that permitted her to remain with her husband has been cited in recent teshuvos dealing with adultery - Seridei Eish (3:124) and Tzitz Eliezer 5:22. However other poskim have disagreed with the Binyan Tzion - Sho'el umeshiv 3:48 and Yad Eleazar (109). The Yad Eleazar (13) deals with another case in which a woman didn't realize the man who came into the apartment and had sex with her was not her husband - but her brother -in-law. When she realized her mistake and protested he raped her and she became pregnant. In this case the Yad Eleazar permitted her to remain with her husband and declared that the child was not a mamzer. [See Infidelity and Intimacy in 19th century Vienna by Julie Lieber in NASHIM  a Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues 2011]

[this is my rough translation - please check the original Hebrew]

Binyan Tzion (#154) … One day when the husband was away on business a man arrived in the village from Poland with ragged clothing and he requested from the wife a place to sleep. While the wife was very modest all her life, her religious righteousness blinded her and out of a feeling pity she gave him a place to stay as well as food and drink. However the guest refused to eat any meat and he refused to drink anything other than water. He did other ascetic acts which seemed to indicate he was a very pious person such as physical afflictions which he did to himself everyday. He sat in his room all day alone with a sefer in his hand. In addition every night he would say tikun chatzos at midnight and mourn for the destruction of the Temple. He also refused to sleep in a bed but instead slept on the ground with a stone for a pillow. Everyday he would immerse himself twice daily in the cold waters of a nearby stream even though it was winter. However one Friday night after the meal was finished and the children and servants had left the table and gone to sleep – this fraud remained sitting at the table alone with the woman. After they talked a while she started to ask him who he was and where he had come from and where was he going? He replied that he was G-d’s messenger and his name was Eliyahu the Prophet and he was gathering his fellow Jews from the four corners of the Earth and that he only revealed this information to certain pious individuals. The woman in her foolishness totally believed him. She then went to sleep in her bedroom which adjoined the dining room. This disgusting person remained sitting in his place study a sefer until midnight. After midnight he got up and quietly tiptoed to her bed and woke her from her sleep. He told her that he had traveled from one end of the world to the other and he had not found anyone as righteous as she was who was deserving to be the mother of the Messiah. But the problem was that her husband was not fitting to be the father of the Messiah. He said therefore he had been sent from Heaven to have intercourse with her and at the appropriate time she would give birth to the Messiah who would redeem all the Jewish people.  He said he would give her sign that he was in fact Eliyahu. He said that the following Tuesday after he had left her, if she would open the trunk which stood in her bedroom she would find a treasure of gold coins.  But this would only happen if she didn't open the trunk before he had left. He spoke these things in such a convincing manner that he succeeded in seducing her and having intercourse with her on Friday Night, Saturday night. However on Sunday before dawn this disgusting person fled from there and no one knew where he went. This foolish woman decided it would be a good idea to write to her husband that he should return home quickly since G-d had given them a great treasure. Her husband listed to her and returned on Tuesday. But when the woman opened the trunk she did not find any treasure that the seducer had promised her. When she realized that she had been tricked she screamed and cried bitterly and told her husband all the disgusting things that had transpired through this wicked man. She explained to him that she hadn't don't this to rebel against him but rather she had done it for the sake of Heaven. She explained that the seducer was ugly and very disgusting and she hadn't done it for lust. However her husband was not placated with this explanation and went to the Rav and told him everything and asked what the halacha was regarding his wife. The Rav sent for her and cross examined her carefully and she told him all the details mentioned here.  The Rav ordered that they separate from each other until he had a chance to consult with other rabbis. [...]

Conclusion: As a consequence of this line or reasoning we are saying that when she deliberately had adulterous intercourse – for the sake of Heaven – it did not constitute rebelling against and betrayal of her husband. However it is not correct to disagree with the Maharik and Beis Shmuel and to permit that which they prohibit. Nevertheless I saw in Shevus Yaakov (2:117) that he was asked concerning a man who was walking with his wife and others in a forest when they were attacked by murderers and the only chance of saving their lives was if his wife had sexual relations with the bandits with her husbands consent. The question was since she had deliberately committed adultery to save their lives was she now permitted to her husband? The Shevus Yaakov answer is based on the Maharik who asked why is such an action different than what Esther did either as being forced originally or eventually doing it willingly since that was also a case where she committed adultery in order to save the Jewish people? … He states that if intercourse was not forced but was done for the sake of saving others – then she is prohibited to her husband but if the intercourse itself was forced then she is permitted to her husband. Now regarding our case the question is that when the seducer said to her that he was Eliyahu the Prophet and he was sent from Heaven to have intercourse with her and she believed this nonsense to such a complete degree that she contacted her husband so he could experience the wealth that had been promised by Eliyahu because she view as if she had already gotten it. Consequently because of her foolishness she viewed this as a Divine commandment to have intercourse with this man and there is no greater force than that. She clearly had no intent to rebel against her husband but her motivation was purely for the sake of Heaven. Therefore it should be viewed according to the Maharik and Achronim that she was totally forced to have intercourse and she is permitted to her husband in my humble opinion.  However my psak should not be relied upon unless there are two other poskim who agree with this and thus I join with them to permit this woman to her husband. In particular as we noted in the question she was always a righteous woman and they have children. This is my humble opinion.

Rav Shalom Arush - because of the Sheinberg scandal - will no longer meet with women

update Can a talmid chachom degrade himself to stop others from sin?

Kikar Shabbat (my rough translation from the Hebrew)

 The Rosh Yeshiva of Chut shel Chesed - one of the most important Breslov rabbis -  announced that he is discontinuing meeting with women who are seeking advice. He explained that this is because the yetzer harah of rabbis is greater than other people.

As a result of the serious allegations related to the case of Ezra Sheinberg that were made public this month in Tzfas, Rav Arush anounced that he will no longer meet with women as part of his regular meeting with the public. He told Kikar Shabbat that he stated that with the explosion of allegations of serious irregularities in Tzfas he has told his chassidim and students he has firmly decided that from now he will not meet with women. He told his students that the reason was "the yetzer harah of rabbis is greater than other people." Therefore it is prohibited for rabbis to meet with women  to provide them with advice...

He also stated that even if the husband comes together with his wife to seek advice he is not willing to meet with the wife. Consequently from now on - women who seek his advice can only get it through the means of a written note brought by the husband.

Beth's case taken up by new president of the board of deputies

The following appeared in the Jewish Telegraph Friday July 17, 2015 page 26

Arkush: I will be robust for Beth

JONATHAN Arkush has promised to “robustly”take-up the case of Beth Alexander with the leaders of the Austrian Jewish community.

Last week, we revealed how 18 rabbis from Britain had signed an open letter criticising their Austrian counterparts and the community there over the treatment of the Mancunian mother. Beth, formerly married to Dr Michael Schlesinger, of Vienna, lost custody of her twin sons, now aged six. She has access to them for only six overnight stays each month and has fought a bitter battle through the courts with her ex-husband.

Mr Arkush told the Jewish Telegraph: “It is a matter of deep concern. This is something I am personally committed to. “It is a painful case and also one which is deeply regrettable. I will do my best to move things along.”

He also said he, together with Board senior vice president Richard Verber, last week met with Martin Eichtinger, the Austrian ambassador to the UK. “I am also planning to meet Jewish leaders in Austria and be robust in dealing with the matter with them,” Mr Arkush added. [...]

Making divorce less icky - new programs and guidance

NY Times

For the last two years, Ms. Pettus, 52, has used her soaring glass-walled living room and backyard to help women mired in the weeds of divorce navigate that which is profoundly icky. She provides community, respite and, most important, resources by hosting monthly panels, seminars and workshops on topics like collaborative law, litigation and mediation, raising teenagers, financial planning, real estate, grief, dating and midlife sex (zinc, apparently, is very important here), led by experts.[...]

Ms. Pettus is not alone in her efforts. While New York has trailed the rest of the country in terms of divorce law — the no-fault divorce did not land here until 2010 — grass-roots support systems surrounding the process have been growing, according to Lauren Behrman, a psychotherapist who specializes in divorce, following the lead of groups in states like California, Oregon and Minnesota, the birthplace of collaborative law. (Collaborative law starts with a commitment to settlement, not court.)

“The biggest challenge is to let people know they have options,” said Dr. Behrman. “That divorce doesn’t have to be this scorched-earth horrible litigation process. But the key is to get to the right professional first. If you walk into the office of a litigator, things are going to go a certain way. If you walk into a mental health professional’s office, it might go another way.”

While divorce rates over all have declined since their peak in the 1980s, the rate for those older than 50 has doubled in the last quarter-century (those over 50 account for half the married population). Nearly two thirds of these so-called gray divorces are initiated by women, an AARP study shows.

It is this confluence that underpins the female-centric nature of divorce support services and groups like Untied. That, and an anecdotal sense that women in crisis may seek community more often than men.

Divorce coaches, another burgeoning specialty, offer one-on-one services, for example, for fees that can hover around $100 an hour and may include a session to plan what to say to one’s lawyer, to streamline the process and thus minimize legal fees.

SAS for Women is a three-year-old divorce coaching business started by two women who had gone through very different divorces but faced a huge learning gap, said Liza Caldwell, one of SAS’s principals.[...]

Stephanie Coontz is co-chair and director of education at the Council on Contemporary Families and an expert on coupling and uncoupling. Groups like Ms. Pettus’s, she said, are “microcosms of a new understanding that we have to develop norms for divorce rather than take sides.”

“As divorce has become more common,” she continued, “people have begun to stop seeing it as a personal loss or betrayal. It’s a process that can go badly or go well, so in many different ways there are people trying to make divorce less disastrous.”[...]

Medical child abuse panic- parents charged for following one doctor against the view of another

NY Times

 FEW things are tougher for a parent than dealing with a child’s serious medical condition, particularly if it is complicated and hard to diagnose. The parent has to make hard choices about treatment, navigating conflicting advice from doctors or even rejecting one doctor’s opinion and seeking another.

Recently, the situation of these parents has gotten even harder. Some doctors and hospitals have begun to level a radical new charge — “medical child abuse” — against parents who, they say, get unnecessary or excessive treatment for their kids. That this care is usually ordered by other doctors hasn’t protected parents from these loaded accusations.

Although most of these cases have nothing to do with real child abuse, credulous child welfare officials have too often supported the doctors, threatened parents with loss of custody, and even removed kids from their homes — simply because the parents disagreed with the doctor’s plan of care.

Perhaps the most notorious such case is that of Justina Pelletier, a teenager who was being treated for mitochondrial disease, or “mito,” a rare metabolic disorder that interferes with energy production. On the advice of a metabolic geneticist at Tufts Medical Center who was treating her, she was admitted in 2013 to Boston Children’s Hospital, so that she could see her longtime gastroenterologist, who had recently moved there. Without consulting the girl’s doctor at Tufts, Boston Children’s concluded that the girl’s problem was not mito, but largely psychiatric, according to The Boston Globe.

When her parents disagreed and sought to transfer her back to Tufts, Boston Children’s called child protection, asserting that the parents were harmfully interfering in her care. Although the Tufts geneticist supported the mito diagnosis, a juvenile court judge deferred to Boston Children’s assessment, and Justina’s parents lost custody. After more than 16 months in state custody, much of it spent in a locked psychiatric ward, Justina was finally returned to her parents — still in a wheelchair, still sick.[...]

As I’ve researched medical child abuse over the past year, several advocacy and support groups for patients with rare diseases told me they had seen an alarming rise in medical child abuse charges: MitoAction (which supports patients with mito); the American Partnership for Eosinophilic Disorders (disorders relating to white blood cells); the Ehlers-Danlos National Foundation (a rare disorder of the connective tissues); and Dysautonomia International (autonomic nervous system disorders). Through these groups, I’ve surveyed 95 parents who have been accused, in 30 states.

Dr. Frances D. Kendall, the geneticist in Atlanta who diagnosed my daughter’s mitochondrial disease, told me that she has seen a rising number of cases in which the parents of children with mito had been wrongly charged. Dr. Mark S. Korson, the geneticist who treated Justina Pelletier at Tufts, also said that such charges have snowballed in recent years.[...]

In its zealotry, the medical child abuse movement resembles two other panics from the recent past: the sex-abuse panic of the 1980s and 1990s and, more recently, the panic over shaken-baby syndrome. In both panics, experts saw foul play where none existed, government officials took their views at face value, and people were wrongly convicted and imprisoned, their lives ruined. Medical child abuse is causing similar harm.[...]

Government should not get involved when doctors disagree about a diagnosis or course of treatment, the doctors have full knowledge of the child’s medical record, and a parent chooses one doctor’s opinion over another’s. It should intervene only when there is evidence that a parent has intentionally provided significant misinformation to physicians, fabricated elements of the medical history or induced medical symptoms. Parents should always be allowed to seek second (and third) opinions.[...]

R' Ezra Sheinberg of Tzfat is named as Northern Rabbi accused of abusing at least 10 women

Arutz 7 The Supreme Court cleared the publication of the name of a prominent northern rabbi accused of sexual abuse overnight Thursday, revealing his identity to the press as Rabbi Ezra Sheinberg, Rosh Yeshiva (dean) of Yeshivat (Torah academy) Orot Ha'Ari in Tzfat (Safed). 

Ten women have accused the rabbi of sexual abuse, up from earlier estimates of eight in Israeli media. 

Since the scandal broke, Rabbi Sheinberg has been distanced from his yeshiva and from the Tzfat community for the sake of public safety. 

During the hearing late Thursday, Justice Ari Shaham rejected claims that revealing the rabbi's name would cause undue damage to his reputation and personal safety. [...]

Rabbi Sheinberg was arrested while trying to flee Israel at Ben-Gurion Airport earlier this month. He was due to be identified by the press following a decision by the Nazareth District Court that revealing his identity was "in the public interest," but that decision had been frozen pending an appeal by his defense team.

Last Friday, Arutz Sheva exposed several damning details about the case, including the fact that Sheinberg allegedly admitted his offenses to Tzfat Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu - but since then has claimed over and over again that the allegations are "nonsense." Sheinberg's defense attorney also accused the women of lying, stating at one point, "who remembers this stuff 13 years later? ][...]

In the hours before his name was revealed to the press, Sheinberg's detention was extended until Thursday, July 23, and the presiding judge in that hearing revealed that damning physical evidence had been added to the case files

First judicial ruling that University failed to provide fair trial in sexual misconduct case

LA Times    Court Document

It began as a typical college hookup: two students at UC San Diego met at a party last year, began drinking and ended up in bed.

The encounter snowballed into a sexual assault complaint, university investigation and a finding that the male student should be suspended.

But the accused student fought back in court and won — marking what is believed to be the first judicial ruling in recent years that a university failed to provide a fair trial in a sexual misconduct case. Some legal experts said Tuesday that the finding could have a broad national impact.

"It could have tremendous persuasive influence on other courts," said Amy Wax, a University of Pennsylvania law professor who, along with 15 colleagues, has raised concerns about the rights of accused students in campus sexual assault cases.

In the San Diego case, Superior Court Judge Joel M. Pressman found that the accused student, identified as John Doe, was impermissibly prevented from fully confronting and cross-examining his accuser.

The judge also found that there was insufficient evidence to back the university's findings that Doe had forced the accuser, identified as Jane Roe, into sexual activity without her consent. The judge ordered UC San Diego to drop its finding against Doe and all sanctions, including a suspension of one year and an additional academic quarter.

The case is being watched nationally as concern has grown that the intensified crackdown on campus sexual assault over the last few years has at times skewed too far against those accused. Over the last four years, the U.S. Department of Education has launched more investigations, imposed more fines and issued more guidelines on campus sexual assault than ever before, pressuring schools to improve what many acknowledged were serious flaws in their handling of complaints.

But the crackdown has also raised concerns about fairness.

Last fall, 28 Harvard Law School faculty members wrote an article criticizing their campus procedures on sexual assault cases as lacking "the most basic elements of fairness and due process" and "overwhelmingly stacked against the accused." [...]

Gateshead Rav on child abuse : It is time to say, "Enough!" It is time to end the silence

I received the following drosho of the Gateshead Rav given last Shabbos. He has given me permission to post it:

You may post it if you wish K”T

 The Gateshead Rav's recent Shabbos Drosho included criticism regarding how child abuse has been dealt with in the Jewish community.

====================================================

Avos (1:14) HE [ALSO] USED TO SAY: IF I AM NOT FOR MYSELF, WHO IS FOR ME, BUT IF I AM FOR MY OWN SELF [ONLY], WHAT AM I, AND IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

משנה מסכת אבות )פרק א:יד): הוא היה אומר, אם אין אני לי, מי לי. וכשאני לעצמי, מה אני. ואם לא עכשיו, אימתי:

The Chossid Ya'avetz writes that there are three ingredients required for someone to have an עליה רוחניות- a spiritual improvement. Firstly a person must recognise the value of being a better person. Secondly a person will only feel the urge to climb if he is not content with his current level. Finally if a person wants to "shteig", he will only do so if he realises the significance of the present.

These are the lessons of our Mishnah – אם אין אני לי- if I don't appreciate the value of becoming better, then I can't be convinced to improve. וכשאני לעצמי  - if I appreciate a higher level yet are content with where I am now – מה אני  - what chance do I ever have of becoming better. ואם לא עכשיו אימתי - If I cannot grasp the moment now- I will never.

The Chofetz Chaim writes that if one wants to succeed in a financial sense then he has to follow the golden rule of "trying to make the greatest reward whilst using the least effort". This lesson can be achieved primarily in one of three ways. Firstly one can have employees to work on his behalf. In that way the workers will toil and the owner will reap the profit. A second option would be to find work in a lucrative setting where only a few hours of work could provide a serious income. The diamond trade could be an example of this. Then there is a third way to achieve this and that is to work in an industry which is season-dependent. In this way the hard work of a few months can be a great pay-off for the rest of the year. Selling Esrogim could be such an example.

That is all well and good when it comes to earning a livelihood, but when it comes to spiritual matters, says the Chofetz Chaim, the opposite is true. A person's spiritual level is judged by his efforts and not by achievements and our Mishnah can be learnt as a homily in order to reinforce this idea.

אם אין אני לי מי לי- If I don't work for myself, then who will work for me? With our Avoida, we can't ask others to fill in for ourselves. We can't have an employee wearing Tefillin and have Yiras Shamayim on our behalf.

Next, אם אני לעצמי מה אני - If I work only for myself for a most of the day, then what am I?

Finally, ואם לא עכשיו אימתי - If I don't work the whole year, if there are times of the year that I'm not working on the עכשיו then when will I work for the "now"? Avoidas Hashem is an all-year-round commitment. It can't be left for just a set period in the year.

Though if we were to understand the Mishna according to its "Pshat" we learn that we need to work with a two-fold approach. Firstly we can't live as hermits; אם אין אני לי מי לי- we can't rely on others to fill in those communal gaps. We can't rely on others to work on our behalf. Yet on the other hand; אם אני לעצמי מה אני - if we try to take on the communal burden alone then we will never achieve anything either. We need to focus on how to bring those two themes to a point of harmony, to a balance of priorities, and finally to realise that communal work can only ever be achieved by those who have an appreciation to the value of time; those who know and live the  . ואם לא עכשיו אימתי

Reb Ahron of Karlin (in Beis Ahron) writes: ואם לא עכשיו אימתי?- if one doesn't realise now that he has an עכשיו  then when will one ever realise the value of now?

There is a Gemora [Brochos  5a] that writes: A man should always incite the good impulse [in his soul]2 to fight against the evil impulse. For it is written: Tremble and sin not. If he subdues it, well and good. If not, let him study the Torah. For it is written: ‘Commune with your own heart. If he subdues it, well and good. If not, let him recite the Shema’. For it is written: ‘Upon your bed’. If he subdues it, well and good. If not, let him remind himself of the day of death.

If one finds himself in the grip of the Yetser Hora and cannot extricate himself with either the Yetser Hatov, learning Torah or reading the Krias Shema, then one should remind oneself that eventually we will all die.

A chossid who learnt this approached the lmrei Emes and asked, what value does this tactic have? If a young person feels enslaved to his Yetser Hora, what will it help to remind him of the day he will die? He is so far away and can't relate to the day of his death?

The lmrei Emes responded, "The Gemora's intention was never that a person should try and remember the day of his death, rather he should realise the death of "today". Today's opportunities will only ever come once and he will never regain that. "Der Tag starbtheint", It is "today" that is "dying". The Gemora is telling us to grab the opportunities that are brought today.

This week a judge passed sentence over a frum looking individual and sent him to jail for over 13 years for molesting children. It is not my intention to speak specifically about this case, rather to raise questions which are perhaps more general in nature.

Firstly, how did our society allow such a person to be in contact with children for so many years? How was such an individual allowed to coast from institution to institution despite his known background? His behaviour wasn't a secret?!

Was he allowed to continue in his job because he came from a respected family? We have to remember that Esov was raised in the home of Yitzchok and Rivka and nevertheless he became the Esov that he was. That's not a statement about his parents; he was showing "atrisk" signs even in his mother's womb.

So too with this individual, it is worth looking at him through the words of Reb Moshe Sternbuch who said ער איז מער חולה ווי רשע- "he's more sick than wicked". Yet that doesn't vindicate the silence of the community and that is why we ask, "How were our children left for hefker]"

Secondly, we have to wonder, how is it that there are those who err so much as to provide unlimited support to child molesters and won't instead help the victims. How is it that there are unlimited funds to aid the perpetrator and yet the victims struggle to get help for expensive therapy? Not only that, but the victims suffer twice as the offender tries to bully them into silence. How have we stood by and watched this double whammy? These are broken souls which have been hit twice.

You should know that if a Rov is attacked in such a way, it may hurt him and his family, it may harm a community, but a rov is a healthy individual living with a lot of self-confidence, yet these children are broken people. How has it been okay for us to ignore their plight? Is this the behaviour of people who are supposed to be nvron ?רחמנים ביישנים וגומלי חסדים

This doesn't mean that we are attacking specific people; individuals. For if we have an issue about individuals we admonish them in private, and not in public. Furthermore, if we query the behaviour of individuals, we end up with individual answers; Reuven doesn't understand, Shimon is very opinionated, Levi has things to hide about himself, etc. Rather this is a question directed to the public; to the whole community - how is it that we have neglected, how is it that we have kept quiet for something that has been known for so long?

It is most probably because we have no idea what damage is done when children are abused. We have to educate ourselves to understand the pain of these children. The abuse that they have suffered gnaws at them from every direction. Many times these children harm themselves or take their own lives. It can affect their mental state or their married lives even after many years. And of course it affects their spiritual lives too, especially if the molester is in the guise of a frum person.

A recent study in the USA placed child abuse as the single biggest cause for people going "off-the-derech" and despite all of this, over the past few months I have received many letters from victims who all seem to have a similar refrain: "Granted the molester is sick, but what about the community? Do those in charge not care?"

Moirai Veraboisai, it's time that we say "Enough!" It's time to end the silence. It is time that we said that no longer will we leave the next generation for hefker, for the sake of misguided values.

The first thing we have to say is אם אין אני לי מי לי- we have the responsibility for our own families; we should be aware of where our children are and with whom they are socialising.

Then we have to learn וכשאני לעצמי מה אני- if we keep information to ourselves - what do we gain? We must learn how to handle and transfer information.

The Error in ‘There’s Nothing More We Can Do’

NY Times

“There’s nothing more we can do.”

These words are often spoken by a physician just before transitioning a patient to hospice and palliative care and are regrettably uttered only days, if not hours, before the person dies. These words leave no room for hope; they make a transition to comfort care a much-feared and often avoided final destination.

Yet here’s the reality: More can always be done. More important, patients know exactly the “more” that they want. The real question is: Why don’t we ask?

“If I had a magic wand, what is it you would wish for today?” This is a question I ask of my patients receiving hospice and palliative care.

No one has ever asked that I rid them of their disease. Rather, I have been met with immediate replies of “make my anxiety go away” or “let me travel to see my family” and “let me go home and sit in my garden.”

These are the things that people say, over and over again, when they are given the opportunity to answer. The real test for physicians, then, is being willing to meet the challenge of discovering our patient’s true wishes, the fulfillment of which may push us well outside our own professional comfort zone.

Sometimes, it is actually the medical team’s best-intended professional wisdom that stands in the way of having patients’ wishes fulfilled. The patient who taught me that, whom I’ll call Ms. Weatherby, was a remarkable 57-year-old with a horrible collection of diseases, which had conspired to stop her lungs from working. [...]

Physicians mostly assume that life support is such an uncomfortable level of medical intervention that no one would ever choose it if they knew no chance for recovery existed and certain death in the hospital would be their only future. Ms. Weatherby challenged that, not in that she thought she would leave the hospital or even the I.C.U. — she knew she wouldn’t. But she defied everyone’s assumptions that life would be too unpleasant and painful in such a setting to be worth living at all. She radiated gratitude.[...]

 The only time doctors are left with “nothing more we can do” is when we fail to ask.

Planned Parenthood Uses Partial-Birth Abortions to Sell Baby Parts

I am not taking any position on this controversy at this time. I am including the Snopes Review of the matter - which so far is categorized as UNDETERMINED.

The Daily Beast explains that the practice is not illegal and is in fact has been around for a while - even though the general public apparently is not aware of it.

The US-UK divide on sex cases: Statute of Limitations

BBC

Bill Cosby faces a string of allegations of sexual assault but cannot be prosecuted in the US because of the statute of limitations. In the UK there is no time limit in sexual abuse and other serious cases. What explains this difference?

The statute of limitations is effectively an expiry date for allegations of crimes. And that expiry date varies from state to state in the US.

In recent years in the UK, there have been a number of high-profile prosecutions of historical sexual abuse cases. Entertainer Rolf Harris was jailed last year for offences that took place between 1968 and 1986. Broadcaster Stuart Hall was jailed in 2013 for offences between 1967 and 1985. TV weather presenter Fred Talbot was jailed this year for offences that took place in 1975 and 1976. 

Labour peer Lord Janner is currently facing criminal proceedings relating to 22 allegations of sexual abuse against nine children during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

But in the US the law in most states is typically very different.[...]

Thirty-four states have statutes of limitations - with time limits from three years to 30 years. Taking the example of the offence of rape, the three bordering states of Georgia, Florida and Alabama highlight just how uneven the law can be.

Georgia has a limit of 15 years. Victims in Florida must bring their case within four years. But there are no limitations at all across the state border in Alabama. 

Some states do make exemptions if a DNA match is found many years later - although even these can carry time limits.

But even if a perpetrator walks straight into a police station and confesses, there's no guarantee of prosecution.

Bart Bareither did exactly that in Indiana last year. He confessed to raping Jenny Wendt nine years earlier. Wendt hadn't reported the crime as she didn't have DNA evidence to prove it and didn't trust that he'd spend a day in prison. 

And despite Bareither's confession, he won't. Indiana's statute of limitation on rape is just five years.

Since then Wendt has successfully campaigned to change the state's law - now known as "Jenny's Law" - to allow later prosecution if there's DNA evidence or a confession. 

Most of Europe also imposes limitations for sexual abuse proceedings.[...]

The fundamental principle of a statute of limitations is to protect the defendants.

The notion dates as far back as ancient Greece, explains Penney Lewis, a law professor at King's College London. There are two main reasons behind it, she says. 

One is that there should be some finality, so that a person can move on with their life without the constant threat of prosecution hanging over their heads, Lewis says.

The second is about ensuring a fair trial for the defendant, she adds.

"There's a practical matter - it becomes so much more difficult to prosecute cases that occurred years and years ago," says Jennifer Temkin, law professor at City University London. "Memories can fade."

Despite the UK's general lack of statutory limitations on prosecuting historical sexual abuse cases, many were still dropped before trial, says criminal barrister Kama Melly. [...]