Reporting Abuse

From Revach.net w/ permission:

 If a child is brought to a hospital battered and showing signs of cruel abuse such as burns, broken bones, black and blue marks it is forbidden for a Jewish doctor to return the child to his parents custody and he must immediately report it to the authorities who will remove the child from the home and place him in foster care. The Doctor does not have a Din of a Moseir since returning the child is Sakanas Nefashos.

What if the child may ultimately end up in a non-Jewish home or institution? The Nishmas Avrohom (CM 388:1) says that Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and ybc"l Rav Elyashiv both hold that you must still report the abuse to the authorities, but you must do everything possible to try to make sure the child ends up in a home that is Shomer Torah U'Mitzvos. He brings from the Tzitz Eliezer that the doctor is only removing the child from his parents murderous arms. What the government does after that is not his immediate concern.

Furthermore he writes that Rav Shlomo Zalman and the Tzitz Eliezer both explicitly held that this halacha applies when a father sexually abuses his daughter, even if she is a ketana, since the halacha equates saving a girl from this abuse to saving her from murder.

עד כאן


See also the journal Yeshurun [Volume 15] where there are a collection of articles on this critical topic and of course echo the above-mentioned psak.