California's right to die law goes into effect today

Santa Cruz Sentinel     Helen Handelsman has been waiting for this day.

Diagnosed in 2013 with late-stage breast cancer, her second bout with the disease, the San Francisco resident has a few wishes: to make it to her 85th birthday in January, and to ask her doctor for a lethal drug prescription under California’s new right-to-die law.

“I want to tell him that this is what I want,” said the grandmother, who now can feel the tumors developing under her collarbone.

“I’ve watched my sister and my father and my son-in-law die from cancer,” she said. “It was morally wrong to keep these people alive when there was no hope they would survive. And the pain can be so horrible.”

Eight months after it was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, California’s controversial End of Life Option Act goes into effect Thursday.

The law allows mentally capable adults, diagnosed with six months or less to live, to ask doctors for prescriptions to end their lives when they choose.

For Handelsman and many other terminally ill Bay Area residents, the physician aid-in-dying law comes as a relief. Patients may decide against using the medication, but just knowing it is there, they say, gives them solace.

Yet, to opponents who continue to rail against its implementation, the law remains a dangerous overreach by the state. Foes argue that it places patients — especially the elderly — at risk for coercion, with little support for other options, and no requirement of witnesses to their self-administered deaths.[...]

This law does not apply to everyone equally,” said Tim Rosales, a spokesman for Californians Against Assisted Suicide.

He pointed to annual state reports from Oregon and Washington — where right-to-die laws have been in place for years — that say one of the biggest reasons people choose aid-in-dying is their fear of being a burden to their family, friends and caregivers.

“That is very telling, certainly when you are looking at the economic diversity across the board,” Rosales said, referring to the pressure some low-income residents may feel about leaving their families with mountains of medical bills.

But the data from those states also reveal that relatively few people each year use the law, and about one-third of those who receive prescriptions never take the medication.

Of 218 prescriptions written in Oregon in 2015, 132 people had died from taking the medication as of mid-January.

Similarly, of 176 prescriptions written in Washington in 2014, 126 patients died after ingesting their medication.

Given California’s larger population, state officials estimate that 1,500 residents annually will seek lethal prescriptions.[...]

If that’s her choice, Hammer said, she should have that right. But with palliative and hospice care, he said, doctors can help terminally ill patients control their pain, allowing them to die “fairly peacefully and fairly comfortably.” [...]

Study Questions Use of Antidepressants for Children, Teens

Tucson   Treating children and teens suffering from depression with antidepressants may be both ineffective and potentially dangerous, a new analysis suggests.

Of the 14 antidepressants studied, only fluoxetine (Prozac) was more effective in treating depression than an inactive placebo in children and teens, the review found.

And Effexor (venlafaxine) was linked to a higher risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts compared to a placebo and five other antidepressants, the researchers reported.

"In the clinical care of young people with major depressive disorder, clinical guidelines recommend psychotherapy -- especially cognitive behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy -- as the first-line treatment," said study author Dr. Andrea Cipriani. He is an associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, in England.[...]

This study shows what has been known -- that these "medicines look less effective and riskier in children and adolescents than they do in adults," said Dr. Peter Kramer. He is a clinical professor emeritus of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, in Providence, R.I.

"Among them, Prozac has always stood out as relatively more effective," Kramer said.[...]

For the study, Cipriani and his colleagues reviewed 34 studies that included more than 5,200 children and teens. This kind of study, called a meta-analysis, tries to find common ground among numerous trials. Its limitations are that the conclusions rely on how well the studies that are included were done.

Moreover, most of the trials (65 percent) were financed by drug companies. And 90 percent had a risk of being biased in favor of the medication, Cipriani said.

The investigators found that only with Prozac did the benefits outweigh the risks in terms of relieving symptoms with few side effects.[...]

The review was published online June 8 in The Lancet.

"This study gives us real concern about the usefulness of antidepressants," said the author of an accompanying journal editorial, Dr. Jon Jureidini.

With a meta-analysis, the benefits of antidepressants may be overstated and the harms understated, said Jureidini. He is a research leader at the Robinson Research Institute of the University of Adelaide in Australia. [...]

‘Repugnant’ — or ‘fair’? Debate erupts over judge’s decision in Stanford sexual assault case

Washington Post    The six-month sentence handed down to a former Stanford University student in a high-profile sexual assault case has been met with outrage — much of it aimed at the judge.

Prosecutors argued that Brock Turner’s three felony convictions should have landed him in state prison for six years. Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky sent Turner instead to the county jail, as probation officials recommended.

“A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him,” Persky said, citing Turner’s age, 20, and his lack of criminal history — comments and reasoning that have landed the judge in the middle of a national firestorm and made him the subject of searing criticism.

State legislators have called Persky’s decision “baffling and repugnant.” And a recall effort has garnered thousands of signatures to an online petition and thousands in donations to the campaign, said Michele Dauber, a Stanford Law School professor who was outraged by the sentencing.[...]

To those who have worked with Persky in the legal community, the attacks on his judgment are shocking in their own right. They describe the judge as an intelligent jurist who knows the law and carefully applies it.

Before his time on the bench, Persky worked as a prosecutor for the district attorney’s office. A public defender who often argued cases against him said Perksy would aggressively and effectively argue to have sexually violent predators stay in prison, asking for their terms to be extended because he believed they continued to pose a threat.

The lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Stanford case has been so divisive in their community, said Persky would find victims from even decades-old cases to prevent defense attorneys from gaining the convicted offenders’ release from prison.

Persky argued those types of cases before Robert Foley, a veteran judge who said he was “absolutely one of the best lawyers who ever appeared in my court.” Persky often appeared in Foley’s courtroom, where, the judge said, he was “credible, ethical and honest.” [...]

Andy Gutierrez, a deputy public defender in Santa Clara County, said many colleagues would not hesitate to take a difficult case to the judge, because they know he will treat each one on its merits and not be swayed by public sentiment. He said that while he sometimes hears reports of certain judges treating their clients, especially minority clients, unfairly, he has never heard that complaint about Persky.

“To the contrary, he has gone out of his way to improve our criminal justice system and, where possible, soften the harsher edges of the criminal justice system in regards to its treatment of indigent persons,” he wrote in an email.[...]

The case file includes a report from a probation officer, which notes a conversation between the officer and the victim.

“I want him to be punished, but as a human, I just want him to get better,” the victim said, according to the probation officer’s report. “I don’t want him to feel like his life is over and I don’t want him to rot away in jail; he doesn’t need to be behind bars.”

In her statement to the court, however, the victim said her words were misinterpreted.

“When I read the probation officer’s report, I was in disbelief, consumed by anger which eventually quieted down to profound sadness,” she wrote in her statement. “My statements have been slimmed down to distortion and taken out of context.”

In the statement, she disputed part of the account, and called the probation officer’s recommendation “a soft time­out, a mockery of the seriousness of his assaults, an insult to me and all women.” [...]

Persky has received threats in the wake of his decision, according to Gary Goodman, deputy public defender in Santa Clara County and the supervising attorney in the Palo Alto office. Goodman said he was was alarmed that someone he described as level-headed, smart and respectful would be targeted in such a vindictive way.

“While I strongly disagree with the sentence that Judge Persky issued in the Brock Turner case I do not believe he should be removed from his judgeship,” Jeffrey Rosen, the district attorney for Santa Clara County, said in a written statement. “I am so pleased that the victim’s powerful and true statements about the devastation of campus sexual assault are being heard across our nation. She has given voice to thousands of sexual assault survivors.” [...]

Milions missing: Report on corruption of Vaad HaRabbonim tzedaka

מיליונים שנעלמו וחשבונות בחו"ל; ההסתבכות של ועד הרבנים

ספרים שחורים, שכר בשחור, חשבונות זרים ללא פיקוח מינימלי, מיליונים שנעלמו, חלוקות שלא היו וחשדות כבדים להלבנת הון. הדו"ח החריף נגד "ועד הרבנים לענייני צדקה" 

http://www.kikar.co.il/200873.html

http://www.kikar.co.il/201025.html

http://www.kikar.co.il/200875.html

הדו"ח החמור על אחת מוועדות הצדקה החשובות במגזר החרדי נחשף: בחודשים האחרונים, לאחר בדיקה מקיפה של רשם העמותות במשרד המשפטים, הוחלט לשלול מעמותת הצדקה "ועד הרבנים לענייני צדקה" - אחת מהעמותות הגדולות ביותר במגזר החרדי - את אישור הניהול התקין ולבטל את הטבות המס שניתנות לעמותות ללא מטרת רווח (סעיף 46). כעת חושף לראשונה "כיכר השבת" את הדו"ח החמור שהוגש לרשם העמותות נגד ועד הרבנים וגרם להחלטה.

• לקריאה: עשרות עמודי הדו"ח נגד ועד הרבנים לענייני צדקה

על פי הדו"ח, שהוכן על ידי רואה החשבון רמי אלחנתי, עולים חששות כבדים לשורת עבירות מס חמורות, חשש למעילות ענק ולניהול בלתי תקין בעליל. בין היתר נכתב בדו"ח כי במקביל לספרי החשבונות שהוגשו לרשם העמותות, נוהלו ספרי חשבונות "שחורים" משם יצאו מיליוני שקלים ללא פיקוח. יודגש כי בכתבה מובא חלק מזערי בלבד ממאות המקרים הבעייתיים שחשף הדו"ח.

Haredi rabbis come out against prenups

Arutz 7 Rabbi Avraham Sherman, a former member of the Great Rabbinical Court and a student of former haredi leader Rabbi Yosef Elyashiv, on Sunday joined those voicing opposition to prenuptial agreements.

The rabbi signed off on a joint letter recently published by a group of haredi rabbis strongly opposing prenuptial agreements, which in recent years have become common among modern Orthodox circles in the US such as the Rabbinical Council of America.

According to the haredi rabbis who signed on to the public letter, a get (divorce) given after a prenuptial agreement has been enacted is considered to be a get meuseh (a divorce granted against the husband's wishes), and is invalid.

The implications of the letter are that a prenuptial agreement before the wedding is liable to be highly problematic if the couple should later decide to divorce.

In the legal ruling, the rabbis wrote that "all obligation of child support or anything else intentionally done with a goal of coercing the get disqualifies the get, and it doesn't matter if they refer to the get openly." [...]

Signatories to the letter included Rabbi Moishe Sternbuch, Ra'avad of the Edah Haharedit, as well as Rabbi Avraham Dov Auerbach who previously was head of the Rabbinical Court in Tiberias, the Chief Rabbi of the Gilo neighborhood in southern Jerusalem Rabbi Eliyahu Shlezinger, and Derekh Emunah chairperson Rabbi Baruch Efrati.

1,000 deaths is too good for you’: Serial British pedophile receives 22 life sentences

Washington Post When it came to sexually abusing children, Richard Huckle proudly fashioned himself an expert.

The Christian schoolteacher from England was so adept at taking advantage of impoverished children in Malaysia and Cambodia, he bragged online that he had authored a how-to guide for others to follow in his footsteps, according to the BBC.

"Impoverished kids are definitely much easier to seduce than middle-class Western kids," Huckle wrote in an online post cited by the BBC. "I still plan on publishing a guide on this subject sometime.”

"I'd hit the jackpot," he commented on another occasion, "a 3yo girl as loyal to me as my dog and nobody seemed to care."

When it came to preying on vulnerable children, investigators say, few have done it with more ruthless planning than Huckle.

When he was finally arrested in 2014 after eight years of terror, prosecutors accused him of raping and abusing nearly two-dozen children ranging in age from 6 months to 12 years, the BBC reported.[...]

Stanford U student given 6 month jail sentence for raping an unconscious woman

NY Times  A sexual-assault case at Stanford University has ignited public outrage after the defendant was sentenced to six months in a jail and starkly different statements were published online by his victim and his father, who complained that his son’s life had been ruined for “20 minutes of action” fueled by alcohol and promiscuity.

The case has made headlines since the trial began earlier this year but seized the public’s attention over the weekend after the accused, Brock Allen Turner, 20, a champion swimmer, was sentenced to what many critics denounced as a lenient stint in jail and three years’ probation for three felony counts of sexual assault, and BuzzFeed published the full courtroom statement by the woman who was attacked.

The statement, a 7,244-word cri de coeur against the role of privilege in the trial and the way the legal system deals with sexual assault, has gone viral. By Monday, it had been viewed more than five million times on the BuzzFeed site.

One of those readings happened live on CNN on Monday, when the anchor Ashleigh Banfield spent part of an hour looking into the camera and reading the entire statement live on the air.

The unidentified 23-year-old victim was not a Stanford student but was visiting the campus, where she attended a fraternity party. In her statement, she described her experience before and after the attack and argued that the trial, the sentencing and the legal system’s approach to sexual assault — from the defense lawyer’s questions about what she wore the night she was attacked to the light sentence handed down to her attacker — were irrevocably marred by male and class privilege.

The trial privileged Mr. Turner’s well-being over her own, she said, and in the end declined to punish him severely because the authorities considered the disruption to his studies and athletic career at a prestigious university when determining his sentence. She wrote:

The probation officer weighed the fact that he has surrendered a hard-earned swimming scholarship. How fast Brock swims does not lessen the severity of what happened to me, and should not lessen the severity of his punishment. If a first-time offender from an underprivileged background was accused of three felonies and displayed no accountability for his actions other than drinking, what would his sentence be? The fact that Brock was an athlete at a private university should not be seen as an entitlement to leniency, but as an opportunity to send a message that sexual assault is against the law regardless of social class.[...]

In the statement, Mr. Turner’s father said that his son should not do jail time for the sexual assault, which he referred to as “the events” and “20 minutes of action” that were not violent. He said that his son suffered from depression and anxiety in the wake of the trial and argued that having to register as a sex offender — and the loss of his appetite for food he once enjoyed — was punishment enough.
Brock Turner also lost a swimming scholarship to Stanford and has given up on his goal of competing at the Olympics.

“I was always excited to buy him a big rib-eye steak to grill or to get his favorite snack for him,” Dan Turner wrote. “Now he barely consumes any food and eats only to exist. These verdicts have broken and shattered him and our family in so many ways.”

Growing fear inside GOP about Trump

CNN   Top Republican officials and donors are increasingly worried about the threat Donald Trump's attack on a judge's Mexican heritage could pose to their party's chances in November -- and about the GOP's ability to win Latino votes for many elections to come.

Trump is under fire for repeatedly accusing U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing a lawsuit involving Trump University, of bias because of his Mexican heritage. Those concerns intensified Sunday after Trump said he would have the same concerns about the impartiality of a Muslim judge.

House and Senate GOP leaders have condemned Trump's remarks about Curiel, while donors have openly worried that losing Latino voters could doom them in key down-ballot races. Other important party figures, including former Speaker Newt Gingrich, are urging Trump to change his combative, confrontational style before it's too late.

Veteran Republican strategist Rick Wilson warned this weekend that GOP leaders who have endorsed Trump "own his politics."

"You own his politics," Wilson wrote in a column for Heatstreet, adding later, "You own the racial animus that started out as a bug, became a feature and is now the defining characteristic of his campaign. You own every crazy, vile chunk of word vomit that spews from his mouth."

The GOP's deepest fear: A Barry Goldwater effect that could last far longer than Trump's political aspirations.

Goldwater, the Arizona senator who was the 1964 GOP nominee and a leader of the conservative movement, alienated a generation of African-American voters by opposing the Civil Rights Act -- opening the door for Democrats to lock in their support for decades. Republicans fret that Trump could similarly leave a stain with Latino voters.

"I am concerned about that," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said Sunday.

"America is changing. When Ronald Reagan was elected, 84% of the electorate was white," McConnell said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "This November, 70% will be. It's a big mistake for our party to write off Latino Americans. And they're an important part of the country and soon to be the largest minority group in the country."

"I hope he'll change his direction on that," said McConnell, who first made the Goldwater comparison last week in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper.[...]

House Speaker Paul Ryan, just a day after announcing his endorsement of Trump, bashed him on a Wisconsin radio station.

"Look, the comment about the judge, just was out of left field for my mind," Ryan said Friday on WISN in Milwaukee. "It's reasoning I don't relate to, I completely disagree with the thinking behind that."

The criticism from McConnell and Ryan was predictable: Both preside over GOP majorities that are threatened thanks to competitive races in Latino-heavy states like Arizona, Nevada and Florida.

More surprising was the condemnation from Gingrich, who has transparently jockeyed for a spot on Trump's ticket.

"I don't know what Trump's reasoning was, and I don't care," Gingrich told The Washington Post. "His description of the judge in terms of his parentage is completely unacceptable."

Gingrich was even sharper on "Fox News Sunday," calling Trump's remarks "inexcusable."

Trump responded to Gingrich's critique on Monday, telling "Fox and Friends" that the former

 House Speaker's comments were "inappropriate."

This is one of the worst mistakes Trump has made," Gingrich said.

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the Foreign Relations Committee chairman who has provided key Republican support for Trump's foreign policy stances and is also often named as a prospective vice presidential candidate, rebuked Trump's comments about the judge on ABC's "This Week."

"I think that he's going to have to change," Corker said of Trump's overall behavior and campaign tactics.[...]

Menachem Bitton - Jerusalem serial child molester - sentenced to 19 years

Times of Israel

The Jerusalem District Court on Sunday sentenced a man to 19 years in prison for carrying out hundreds of sex crimes against young teen and preteen boys in the capital.

Menahem Bitton, 30, was convicted in February in a plea bargain after admitting to committing the assaults over a period of several years.

Testimony from Bitton’s victims revealed how he would entice them and then molest them, including in some cases sodomizing them. He bought silence from the victims with bribes of gadgets or cash payments of between NIS 50 and NIS 100 ($13-$26).

Bitton, who worked in an apartment rental business in the Nahlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem, used empty apartments to carry out the attacks.[...]

Jerusalem Mashgiach's remand extended - Attorney says allegations are baseless

kikar haShabbat

בית המשפט המחוזי בירושלים האריך את מעצרו של "המשגיח התוקף" עד תום ההליכים המשפטיים • פרקליטו עו"ד יהודה פריד ל"כיכר השבת": "מקווה שנוכל להוכיח כי הדברים לא היו מעולם" (בארץ)

בית המשפט המחוזי בירושלים האריך היום (חמישי) את מעצרו של "המשגיח התוקף" עד תום ההליכים, ובכך קיבל את דרישת הפרקליטות להאריך את מעצרו.

פרקליטו, עורך הדין יהודה פריד, אומר ל"כיכר השבת" בתגובה כי "אנחנו בתחילת הדרך. כדי לעצור אדם מספיק ראיות לכאורה".

"לגבי 'הראיות האמיתיות' במרכאות", הוא מוסיף ,"אנו נלמד את החומר ואני מקווה שנוכל להוכיח כי הדברים לא היו מעולם".

הארכת המעצר מגיעה כשלושה שבועות לאחר הגשת כתב האישום החמור נגד המשגיח, מאחת הישיבות המפורסמות בירושלים, כתב אישום שטלטל את המגזר החרדי.

[...]

New York Times attacks gender separation at hasidic-area pool

Arutz7

An only-in-New-York story about a public swimming pool that offered women-only swim periods for the area’s Orthodox community turned into a full-blown media firestorm when the New York Times weighed in on the subject.

The pool, located in the heavily Orthodox Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, had been offering women-only hours since the 1990s to accommodate those whose religious sensitivities forbid women and men from swimming together.

Last week, the Parks Department cancelled the women-only swim periods after an anonymous complaint was made to the city’s Commission on Human Rights, only to reverse itself following objections by Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an Orthodox politician representing the nearby Borough Park and Midwood neighborhoods.

That reversal led to a strongly worded editorial in the Times Wednesday, which asserted that setting aside a special time for a religious group at a public facility violated “the laws of New York City and the Constitution, and commonly held principles of fairness and equal access.”

“The city’s human rights law is quite clear that public accommodations like a swimming pool cannot exclude people based on sex,” the editorial argued, adding that the current practice has a “a strong odor of religious intrusion into a secular space.”

The Times editorial drew a swift backlash from parts of the Jewish community, who accused the paper of unfairly rejecting a reasonable religious accommodation and of applying a double standard to Orthodox Jews.

Seth Lipsky, the founding editor of the New York Sun and a former editor of the Forward, wrote a heated missive in the New York Post titled “Let My People Swim — and Damn the New York Times.” [...]

In Tablet Magazine, Yair Rosenberg pointed to examples in St. Paul, Minnesota, San Diego and Seattle in which accommodations made for Muslim women to swim without men were applauded in some cases and sparked controversy in others. But he questioned why the Times editorial failed to mention these precedents and focused exclusively on Orthodox Jews.

“It is exceedingly odd that the national paper of record only excoriated the practice of sex-segregated swimming when it became aware of religious Jews engaging in it, and even then, omitted the identical practices of religious Muslims,” he writes.[...]

Palestinians arrested for anti - Israeli rape against mentally-disabled woman

update: JPost  CASE DISMISSED

In a statement on Wednesday, Tel Aviv police said that “after 15 days of questioning investigators came to the conclusion that they did not find evidence to support the claims of the complaints,” leading them to recommend that both suspects – a 42-year-old father from Nablus and a 17-year-old Palestinian – be released from custody. [...]

The case has become another public embarrassment for police, who first drew criticism for not reporting the rape for over a week, and then for their zig-zagging on the terrorism angle and finally the release of the two suspects. 

--------------------------------------------------------------
JPost

Two Palestinians are in currently in custody for allegedly raping and urinating on a mentally-disabled woman in south Tel Aviv, in what police say was a racially-motivated crime.

The incident allegedly took place on Yom Haatzmaut earlier this month, inside the 20-year-old victim’s aunt’s apartment. During the act, Imad Aladin Dragame, 42, allegedly filmed the rape, which police say was carried out by two other Palestinians – including a minor – who urinated and spit on the woman while shouting anti-Semitic slurs at her and threatening to murder her aunt and brother if she complained.

The third suspect in the case remains at large, while the minor and Dragame were on Wednesday ordered kept in custody for an additional 5 days. For Dragame, a resident of Nablus with a legal permit to work inside Israel, it was the third remand hearing since he was arrested on May 16th, following a complaint by the victim’s aunt. He also faces drug charges after police allegedly found 11.5 grams of marijuana in his apartment, which is in the same building as the victim’s aunt.[...]

Sgt. Maj. Yisrael Sianov, the officer representing the police [...] continued, “in addition, they threatened her not to tell anyone, saying they would rape her aunt and murder her brother. This is a shocking incident.”

Last March, the Defense Ministry recognized the victim of a 2012 rape in Tel Aviv as a terror victim, due to the nationalist nature of the attack. [...]

In describing actions causing defects in children are Chazal describing medical facts or rabbinical curses?

I just came across and interesting article in 'Asia vol 73-74 pp 139-144 (  סכנתא או איסורא בהלכות תשמיש) by Rav Yehuda Hertzl Henkin regarding the nature of the statements of Chazal. We have discussed extensively the issue of causality ascribed by rabbis to events such as the Holocaust. There is a general obligation to try and search for the causes of misfortune in order to do teshuva and avoid wrong doing. There remains the question as to whether these causal descriptions of historical events are accurate or whether they are primarily motivational

Rav Henkin introduces a new dimension in this article. When Chazal say that if you do X then Y will happen - are they describing reality? What if the consequences they describe don't happen - does that mean that they were wrong or does it simply mean that nature has changed? Or perhaps all they mean  is that the consequences are more likely to happen if you do X but the change is only an increase in the likelihood - not that they will certainly happen.

The gemora being analyzed is Nedarim (20a-b) which is the basic text dealing with what is permitted in sexual relations.

Nedarim (20b): R Yochanon said, The above view [that talking, kissing or looking at her genitals or having unnatural sex produces defects in the children] is the view of Rabbi Yochanon ben Dehabai. However the Sages have said that the halacha is not in accord with his view but rather the halacha is that all that a man wishes to do with his wife he can do. This is comparable to meat which comes from the butcher. If he wants he can eat it salted, roasted, boiled or baked. And similarly regarding fish that comes from the fisherman. Ameimar asked, And who are the angels [that told him this]. They are rabbis. Because if in fact actual angels told him that the actions produced severe defects in children then why isn't the halacha in agreement with him? After all the angels are very knowledgeable about the nature of embryos! But why are these rabbis referred to as angels? Because they are as distinguished [by wearing white garments and tzitzis – Shabbos 25b] as angels.

Rav Henkin notes that some of the authorites dealing with appropriate behavior state that certain behavior is prohibited because of lack of modesty or the prohibition not to do disgusting things or even that one must love his fellow human being. Thus they clearly hold that these are either Torah or Rabbinic prohibitions. On the other hand there are a number of gemoras which say that inappropriate behavior causes severe defects in the child - such as epilepsy, blindness, deafness, mutism as well as spiritual defects such as an overwhelming yetzer harah.  These latter authorities are describing biological or medical dangers. The problem is how do we understand these statements when in fact to the best of our knowledge these behaviors don't produce the stated consequences? Is there an argument in medical reality?

 The gemora above notes the if these statements came from actual angels who really know what goes on - then they could be accepted. But since the source is a group of rabbis who apparently don't have special knowledge of the subject - Chazal reject their view.

If these "angels" don't have special knowledge then on what basis are they making their claims? Is it simply to scare people into behaving - even though they know the claims are not true? Perhaps it was the common understanding of the doctors of those times - even though they were mistaken.

Rav Henkin seems to suggest that the rabbis were well aware that they didn't have a medical basis for their claims. He suggests that these rabbis wanted to curse people who acted inappropriately and say that people deserved this to happen - not that it was going to happen. It seems that Chazal rejected this minority proposal and said that a person shouldn't do these things because of piety, modesty, respect of others or not to be disgusting.

והיה ראוי לפרש שר' יוחנן בן דהבאי איסורא קאמר ולא סכנתא, וחז"ל הם שאסרו לעשות מעשים אלה והם אמרו על דרך הקללה שראוי שייענשו על ידי הולדת בנים בעלי מומים. ולא שבאמת נולדים כן ושלא ככל הנ"ל. כלומר שאינו ענין טבעי כי אז מלאכי השרת בקיאים בטבע יותר ממנו, אלא הוא עניין גזירת ואיסור חכמים. וניחא שלא נחלקו במציאות שר"י בן דהבאי סובר שדברים אלה גורמים למומים ורבי יוחנן סובר שאינם גורמים למומים.

Would appreciate anybody letting me know if they have seen a similar explanation

Former principal accused of abusing students - mentally unfit for extradition - released from house arrest in Israel

9 News Australia   A Jerusalem judge has ruled former principal of Adass Israel School Malka Leifer is mentally unfit to be extradited back to Australia to face 74 child sex charges, instead lifting her house arrest and allowing her to stay in the country.

Leifer is wanted by Victorian police for charges of indecent assault and rape allegedly involving girls at the Elsternwick school, after accusations were first raised in 2008.

Jerusalem District Court judge Amnon Cohen ruled yesterday that Leifer would receive outpatient treatment in Jerusalem after a report from the district psychiatrist found she was not mentally fit to face an extradition trial.

A Jerusalem judge has ruled former principal of Adass Israel School Malka Leifer is mentally unfit to be extradited back to Australia to face 74 child sex charges, instead lifting her house arrest and allowing her to stay in the country.

Leifer is wanted by Victorian police for charges of indecent assault and rape allegedly involving girls at the Elsternwick school, after accusations were first raised in 2008.

Jerusalem District Court judge Amnon Cohen ruled yesterday that Leifer would receive outpatient treatment in Jerusalem after a report from the district psychiatrist found she was not mentally fit to face an extradition trial.

Leifer's treatment in a Jerusalem clinic would begin next week and would last initially for six months.

She would receive up to five treatments during that time until a committee would assess whether she is fit to stand trial.

The court ruled this process could go on for up to 10 years. If the committee continually finds she is unfit to stand trial she may evade her extradition trial indefinitely.

Jewish Community Watch representative Shana Aaronson said she was shocked by the judge's ruling.

"Disappointed isn't really a strong enough word - for the victims in Australia this has dragged on and on for them and it's horrible," she said.

Aaronson was also worried Leifer may reoffend in Israel, given she would no longer be under house arrest.

"The thought they will put a predator right back into the community is insane," she said

The move has also sparked outrage with officials. The Ambassador of Australia to Israel Dave Sharma told the ABC they would persist with the process.

“We are determined to be patient and persevere to this end with the view to seeing her extradited,” Mr Sharma said.

One of the alleged victims told the ABC she was horrified by the outcome.

“How can it be that she is not fit enough to stand trial but she only has to go to the psychologist once a month,” she queried.

“It’s mindboggling. I’ve lost all hope that she will face justice.”[...]