[Avodah] Metz on Shabbos for hypospadias, but not otherwise

[Arie Folger]

On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Meir Rabi <meirabi at gmail.com> wrote:
> But that is almost a concession that in all other cases, where there is no
> medical benefit, Metz is not to be performed on Shabbos.

R' Dr. Halperin's argument is that since minor hypospadias is not
necessarily diagnosed well, tradition made this a blanket procedure.
Think about it, they didn't have evidence based medecine yet, but were
essentially practiciing it. The took note, when a certain procedure
ended up saving more infants, even though they might not have known
why.

Now you can argue that nowadays we could instead require proper
diagnosis, and all mohalim should be able to diagnose not just severe
hypospadias (which is very obvious to a mildly trained eye, but all
hypospadias. I hear. But you surely hear the opposite view, too, as
this might save an occasional infant from lifelong sexual disfunction
or worse.

Consider it a medical chumra, which is important enough to allow it to
be done on Shabbat, too.
-- 
Arie Folger,
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