Prominent Medical Opinions
Rabbi Waldenberg forbade performing elective surgery on someone who is neither sick nor in pain, such as cosmetic surgery. He argues that such activities are outside the boundaries of the physician's mandate to heal. (Responsa Tzitz Eliezer, 11:41; 12:43.) Notably, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein disagreed with this opinion. (Responsa Igrot Moshe, Choshen Mishpat 2:66.)
He allowed first trimester abortion of a fetus which would be born with a deformity that would cause it to suffer, and termination of a fetus with a lethal fetal defect such as Tay-Sachs disease up to the end of the second trimester of gestation. (Tzitz Eliezer, 9:51:3.)
He ruled that a child conceived outside the womb, through in vitro fertilisation, has no parents and bears no halachic relationship either to the biological parents or the "surrogate mother," the woman who carries the child to term. (Id., 15:45.)
He was one of a small but growing number of rabbis to forbid smoking. (Schussheim, Eli and Eliezer Waldenberg. “Should Jewish law forbid smoking?” B’Or ha’Torah 8 (1993))
Many of his medical opinions were recorded by his student Avraham Steinberg, M.D, and then translated into summary volumes.
In the chapter entitled "On the treatment which exposes the physician to danger," Rabbi Waldenberg wrote:
| “ | In principle, a person may not place himself in possibly life-threatening danger in order to save his neighbor's life… It is permitted for a physician to assume the risk of treating patients with any type of contagious disease. Indeed, he is credited with the fulfillment of an important religious duty. When preparing to treat a patient with a contagious disease, the physician should pray to G-d for special guidance and protection since he is endangering his own life. A military physician is permitted to render medical care to a wounded soldier in a combat zone although he is endangering his own life. This applies even if it is doubtful whether the wounded soldier will live, die, or be killed. Similarly, another soldier is allowed to place his own life in danger in order to rescue a wounded comrade from the combat zone. | ” |
(Quoted by Jewish Medical Law: A Concise Response; Compiled and Edited by Avraham Steinberg, M.D. Translated by David Simons M.D.; Beit Shammai Publications, 1989, Part 10, Chapter 11.)
In a particularly controversial ruling, Waldenberg ruled that sex reassignment surgery for transsexuals effects a change in a person's halachic gender, and that, in his words, "The external anatomy which is visible is what determines the halakha". (Id., 25:26:6; ).
Read more about this topic: Eliezer Waldenberg
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