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who is linked to promiscuity and crime, who has contracted a con-
tagious disease, Rachmana litzlan, and who is liable to infect others
whose lives do not center on promiscuity but who are liable to sin
with her on occasion in consequence of her coaxing. These people
are sinners whom we are obligated to save, like others who sin for
their own gratification. It is therefore possible that the woman should
be treated as well, so that she doesn’t infect them. See Gittin (41b)
where Tosfos (s.v. kofin) write: “Even though they are sinners since
she courted them and tempted them to engage in promiscuity, they
are considered to have acted out of compulsion.”

A wonderful story was publicized this week about a little girl one
and a half years old from the settlement of Tifrach who fell into a
fifteen meter deep drainage pit. A physician who arrived at the scene
tied a rope to his feet and had himself lowered into the pit head first
and he saved the girl. Happy is the physician who did this, for he
will be a partner in all the good deeds that this upstanding Jewish
daughter of Yisrael will do throughout her life.

I would just like to add that the reward awaiting any physician who
enters this woman’s spiritual cesspit and saves her spiritually, will also
be enormous.

Now, our entire discussion hitherto concerns treatment to cure the
sinful woman alone but if she is pregnant and there is concern that
the fetus’ life may be in danger it is relevant to cite what is written in
the sefer Pesach Ha’dvir (Orach Chaim, 330,2) about whether there
is an obligation to save a married woman who betrayed her husband
and became pregnant from another man, despite her having trans-
gressed the terrible sin of immorality.

The Yeshuos Malko responded that it is obligatory to save her
because of the fetus. Even though the fetus is indeed a mamzer [the
offspring of certain forbidden e.g. incestuous unions] every effort
must nevertheless be made to keep it alive for it is a Jew like any other
Jew, and the mother’s life will be preserved in the merit of her fetus.

In our case too, it is possible that despite her being a sinner and
entrenched in immorality having thrown off all restraint in regard to

254 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein