FLORIDA: Boy spite-circumcised, has leukaemia, father keeps mother away

It's official: he's cut. Ah well, only 13 years till he can sue...

the Sun-Sentinal (Florida)
December 15, 2015

Boy at center of circumcision fight has acute leukemia; mom seeks visits

by Marc Freeman
The 5-year-old Palm Beach County boy whose parents' battle over circumcision was followed around the world now is in a fight for his life.

The child was diagnosed with acute leukemia last month — apparently soon after he was finally circumcised as his father long wished, according to developments revealed for the first time in court on Tuesday.

But the mother, Heather Hironimus — who was jailed for nine days in May until she consented to the circumcision — asked the court to let her see her boy as he undergoes chemotherapy treatments. The boy's father, Dennis Nebus, has had temporary full custody since mid-May, after Hironimus hid with the boy for almost three months in a Broward domestic violence shelter.

Nebus wants Circuit Judge Jessica Ticktin to bar Hironimus from any visits because of claims she "willfully" violated a prior court order by posting on social media about the child — in his case the leukemia diagnosis — in Facebook posts that apparently were distributed on the Internet by anti-circumcision activists.

"She has shown total disregard for this child," argued May L. Cain, attorney for Nebus, further blasting Hironimus and her attorney for their decision to "feed the press" by announcing in recent court pleadings the circumcision has happened.

"You know that all of the things that have gone on in this case and in the pleadings have been picked up by the media," Cain told Hironimus while asking her questions Tuesday. "You were on the front page of the Sun Sentinel, right? You didn't think that putting out there that your child was circumcised is a private matter that should have been private for him? Do you think that the world has the right to know that he's been circumcised?" [But the ownership of his genitals was not a private matter that should have been private for him?]
 
Brian M. Moskowitz, the West Boynton mom's lawyer, told the judge that because the boy has been circumcised there is no longer a reason for the court to keep her from the child because she would have no reason to kidnap him.

"The issue of circumcision has been removed, and that was the underlying basis for the order" giving Nebus, of Boca Raton, custody, Moskowitz said. "The circumstances have changed."

The attorney also said the child's medical crisis is even more reason for the court to allow her access to the boy.

"This is when the child needs both parents more than ever," Moskowitz said. The 31-year-old mother has seen the child only one time — in his hospital room on Nov. 10 after Nebus, 48, told her about the boy's condition — since her arrest in May.

The child is now in remission and living with Nebus, but still has chemotherapy treatments ahead to ensure the boy has a good chance of being cured, according to Dr. Carmen Ballestas, his pediatric oncologist.

Ticktin said she would consider the positions of both sides before issuing her ruling on the mother's request for visitation rights "as soon as I can."

In September, before the diagnosis, Hironimus was granted permission for supervised visits with the child at a neutral site, a Delray Beach family center, with a plan for an off-duty cop watching at her expense. But the visits never happened because of continued quarrels among the parents over details about the meetings, such as Nebus insisting she not accompany the boy into a bathroom.

Then, in early November, Hironimus was suddenly summoned to the hospital for her long-awaited reunion with her son — just not as she ever envisioned. She spent 3-1/2 hours in the hospital room with him, playing together with his toys and watching the movie "Finding Nemo."

After she told the boy she would be back the next day, "He had a big smile on his face," she said. But when Hironimus returned to the hospital she said she was met by security guards preventing her from coming to the room.

Hironimus testified that she only posted online about the boy's diagnosis so her family and friends could pray for him. She said she's no longer in direct contact with the circumcision opposition groups that supported her after she decided to fight the procedure she agreed to in a 2012 parenting plan.

"We have a mother here who consistently does not follow the rules," Cain told the judge. [We have a mother here who consistently puts her son's welfare ahead of "rules" unconscionably imposed by a control-freak father through a compliant court.]

Hironimus still remains bound by the conditions of a pretrial intervention agreement that resolved her criminal case in July. Hironimus was not required to plead guilty, but she admitted "responsibility for interfering with a lawful custody order."

She's required to undergo a mental health evaluation [but Nebus isn't?] and finish all recommended treatment; submit to random drug testing; and check in with a probation officer once a month.

The State Attorney's Office will drop the felony count in the summer if Hironimus successfully meets the requirements, including the completion of a four-hour parenting course. If she fails, she could once again face prosecution and a maximum punishment of five years in prison for a conviction.


Earlier story

FLORIDA: Secret agreement reached over visits to cut-dispute boy

Sun-Sentinel (Palm Beach, Florida)
September 16, 2015

Parents in circumcision fight appear to settle visitation dispute after judge, attorneys meet privately

by Marc J. Freeman
Heather Hironimus may soon be allowed supervised visits with the son she hid for months this year during her highly publicized battle against his circumcision. But the terms negotiated by attorneys Wednesday were not publicly disclosed after a judge abruptly halted a court hearing and convened private talks.

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jessica Ticktin printed copies of the agreement from her computer and distributed them to the attorneys through a courthouse deputy, more than two hours after she began meeting in her chambers with attorneys for the West Boynton mother and Dennis Nebus, father of the nearly 5-year-old boy.

The dialogue continued sometimes with and without the judge, who did not return to the bench to adjourn court after Hironimus and Nebus signed the pact. Hironimus has been seeking a reunion with her child for the first time since mid-May. The Boca Raton father has had temporary full custody.

Judge Ticktin did not return a call to the Sun Sentinel from a message left with her assistant, and the attorneys hurried past a reporter without commenting on what happened in place of an advertised, three-hour public court hearing. The official online court docket for the case did not show the agreement had been posted Wednesday night.

It was the latest twist in a battle that generated international headlines after Hironimus violated family court orders and fled with the boy to a Broward domestic violence shelter for about three months, until she was arrested and jailed for nine days.

She became the champion of circumcision opposition groups, after she decided to fight the procedure she agreed to in a 2012 parenting plan.

Wednesday's hearing began as expected, with Hironimus watching her attorney, Brian M. Moskowitz, arguing for her to visit with her son at a neutral site, a Delray Beach family center, with an off-duty cop watching at her expense.

"A mom has the absolute right to see her child as long as she abides by the law," the attorney said. He promised she will behave, because a violation could void a deal resolving her separate criminal case concerning an interference with custody charge and land her back in Palm Beach County Jail.

Hironimus, who signed a consent to the circumcision in May, "has no idea if her son has been circumcised," Moskowitz said of the procedure.

May L. Cain, attorney for Nebus, only said her client has been stymied each time he has tried to schedule the medical procedure, because of threats and intimidation from "crazy groups." [The only threats have been of legal action. It's not a medical procedure. The boy has no symptoms and no diagnosis.]
 
"Some of them call themselves intactivists," she told the judge.

Still, Nebus is agreeable to Hironimus being a part of her son's life if security precautions — including at least one deputy in the room along with a "parenting coordinator" — are put in place, Cain said.

"We're still afraid these groups are going to abduct this child," she said. "My client's main concern is to keep the parties' son safe."

His ground rules: The mother doesn't say a word about circumcision to the boy; she gets one, one-hour visit per week; and no photography will be allowed during the visits.

"We feel those photos will end up online somehow," Cain said, noting that in the past the child's maternal grandmother was responsible for leaking the "most private details of the child's life" on the Internet.

Nebus' hesitation is a result of the protracted circumcision battle and a lack of trust when it comes to Hironimus considering how she first tried to get state courts to block the surgery and then fled with the boy.

"The mother told the child the father was dead," Cain told the judge. "This is not," the attorney explained, "your normal run-of-the-mill case."

Both attorneys had announced they were calling several witnesses, including Hironimus and Nebus.
Judge Ticktin then said, "Counsel, why don't we take five minutes?" and called Cain and Moskowitz back to her chambers.

That left Nebus, 48, and Hironimus, 31, sitting in awkward silence, alone at opposing tables, for more than 45 minutes until their attorneys emerged without the judge.

The back-and-forth negotiations in the judge's chambers continued without explanation. Hironimus' criminal defense attorney, Richard Tendler, also joined some of the talks.

Hironimus appeared to be pleased upon signing the agreement, totally different from the scene that played out at the same table on May 23, when she cried and shook while signing a circumcision consent form.

On July 16, her criminal case was resolved as well, with a pretrial intervention agreement. Hironimus was not required to plead guilty, but she admitted "responsibility for interfering with a lawful custody order."

She's required to undergo a mental health evaluation and finish all recommended treatment; submit to random drug testing; and check in with a probation officer once a month. [Shouldn't Nebus, who has repeatedly and at length tried to force unnecessary surgery on the boy, be undergoing a mental health evaluation?]
 
The State Attorney's Office will drop the felony count in one year if Hironimus successfully meets the requirements, including the completion of a four-hour parenting course. If she fails, she could once again face prosecution and a maximum punishment of five years in prison for a conviction.

Earlierstory

FLORIDA: Mother cops plea to keep custody from spite-circumcision father

Associated Press
July 16, 2015

Woman in Son's Circumcision Fight Pleads in Custody Case

A Florida woman who was jailed in her fight against her son's circumcision can avoid additional jail time on a child-custody charge.

Thirty-year-old Heather Hironimus of Boynton Beach entered a plea Thursday allowing her to avoid prosecution for interfering with child custody if she doesn't land in trouble in the next year.

Hironimus had fled with her 4-year-old son to avoid the circumcision that the boy's father wanted and judges agreed should be performed.

She was jailed on a contempt charge, but freed after she agreed to the procedure. The child-custody charge was the last legal hurdle remaining for her.

Hironimus' attorney, Richard Tendler, tells The Palm Beach Post his client "is relieved the matter is behind her and looks forward to moving on with her life."

Earlierstory

FLORIDA: Spite-circumcision looming; doctor threatens to file complaint

the Broward Palm Beach New Times (Florida)
June 10, 2015

Hironimus Circumcision Case: Doctor Threatens to File Complaint Against Hospital

by Deirdra Funcheon
John Trainer, M.D., is a family doctor in Jacksonville. He has circumcised children and taught other doctors how to perform circumcisions. His own son is circumcised.

But during the past few months, as he's followed the case of 4-year-old Chase Hironimus — whose father won a highly publicized legal battle against his mother regarding whether the boy should be circumcised — Trainer reexamined his own position on the surgery and has come to believe that routine infant circumcision is a violation of medical ethics and that Chase's case is particularly egregious because the mother's consent was forced under duress.

Now, he is threatening Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital, where a doctor is rumored to be circumcising Chase this week, saying that if the surgery proceeds, he will file a complaint with the state Department of Health, which would then have to consider the matter. So far, the matter has been treated in state court as a contract dispute, but this could force a different set of authorities — medical administrators — to look at it in a new light.

Hironimus, in a contract signed years ago, agreed to the circumcision but changed her mind as the boy aged and she learned more about the procedure. A judge ruled that the circumcision could proceed, and she fled with the child and was caught months later and jailed. She was forced to sign a consent form for the procedure or else remain in jail indefinitely. She signed it, crying hysterically in a courtroom.

From a physician's point of view, Trainer told New Times, "it's absolutely mind-boggling this would be considered as real consent." Of the doctor rumored to be scheduled to perform a circumcision on Chase — Gary Birken — Trainer said, "it is incumbent on him" to be "aware that this is a dramatic case, an unusual case.

"Where this this galls me the most," Trainer says, "is that if we are physicians and ethical and called on to police our profession," and the doctor here "either knew or should have known" — that's the phrasing commonly used in ethical standards — "that consent was tainted," and if he proceeds in this particular case, "at the very least his ethics need to be challenged."

Furthermore, he said, pediatric surgery ethics require that a doctor make the child aware of what is happening and consider the child's opinion in elective surgeries. Court documents asserted that Chase was scared of and does not want the procedure.

Trainer says he has no personal connection to the case, but as he followed it and engaged with anticircumcision activists, it was like the "allegorical scales falling off my eyes."

Circumcision in America was popularized by John Harvey Kellogg in the 1800s to prevent masturbation. Trainer says it's absurd that "the cereal magnate could still have impact on human anatomy 100 years later — I think it's barbaric and cruel." In a circumcision, he says, irrespective of the pain to the child, "you have an open wound in a soiled diaper with urine and feces. If we were asking any other surgeon to do this under these circumstances, it would be 'reductio ad absurdum.'"
It's also, he says, "the only procedure an obstetrician will do on a man — and with absolutely no follow-up. They'll never see that penis again — no follow-up. This is unheard-of with any other procedure."

Asked if he faced any career risks by preemptively speaking out against a doctor or hospital, Trainer said, "I am on the Board of Directors of Baptist Primary Care, a leader in a consortium of 150 providers — the largest and most trusted health-care system in Northeast Florida. If I suffer backlash for speaking out, I am OK with that. Actually, my Facebook page is blowing up with people commending me for being courageous. I don't really feel that brave."

Activists have launched a letter-writing and social media campaign to warn doctors not to circumcise Chase. Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital has acknowledged on Facebook that it is aware of the objections, writing:
We have heard your concerns loud and clear. We recognize this is an emotionally charged topic and case, evident by the number of posts to this page from people in and outside our community. Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital has been a pillar in the South Florida community and an advocate for many causes, always working for the benefit of its patients while providing quality service and care. We ask that you respect the confidentiality of all our patients as cases evolve. Please understand that we can't and will not discuss specifics in this forum due to HIPAA guidelines. A protest at the hospital was scheduled for today at 11 a.m.

[The story is progressing rapidly. A further statement from the hospital says -
...the child in question is not a patient at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital or any Memorial Healthcare System facility or of Dr. Gary Birken. - yet leaked medical records show him as one. An emergency legal threat from another lawyer appears to have at least postponed the operation.]


Earlier story

FLORIDA: Tearful handcuffed mother signs genital cutting consent

Yahoo! news (AP)
May 22, 2015

After week in jail, Florida mom agrees to son's circumcision

by Matt Sedensky
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman's yearslong battle with her child's father over the boy's circumcision ended Friday after she agreed to the procedure in exchange for her release from jail.

In a remarkable turnaround after a week behind bars for contempt and an initial hearing in which she was ordered to remain jailed, court reconvened and a sobbing Heather Hironimus signed paperwork giving approval for the 4-year-old boy's surgery, recoiling in tears and clasping her shackled hands after it was done. The shift, though under duress, threatened the hero status given to Hironimus by a bubbling movement of anti-circumcision advocates who have followed the case's every turn.

She remained jailed Friday afternoon and was due back in court Tuesday on a separate criminal charge of interfering with child custody. It was not clear how soon she would be released.

Attorneys for both Hironimus and the boy's father, Dennis Nebus, declined to comment, citing an ongoing gag order in the case.

Georganne Chapin, executive director of Intact America, which advocates against circumcision, said Hironimus had been "bullied" into signing, calling it the "saddest commentary on the court."

"I don't know what's in his head," she said of Judge Jeffrey Gillen, who presided over the case. "I don't know how he can sleep at night."

Hironimus and Nebus had initially agreed to the circumcision in a parenting agreement filed in court, but the mother later changed her mind. Circuit and appellate judges sided with the father, but potential surgeons backed out after failing to get the mother's consent and becoming the target of protesters.

Hironimus went missing with the boy in February, ignoring warnings from Gillen to be in court and allow the circumcision to proceed. She remained missing until her arrest last week, staying in a domestic violence shelter. With her legal options dwindling, she filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of her son, looking for a solution outside state court.

But her attorney abruptly withdrew that case Wednesday, two days after its first hearing, when a judge expressed open skepticism of its merits.

Upon arriving in court Friday, chained at the wrists and ankles and wearing a navy blue jail jumpsuit, Hironimus quietly invoked her Fifth Amendment rights when asked whether she had signed the consent agreement. Gillen said Hironimus would be jailed indefinitely unless she did.

Her mother, Mary Hironimus, fought back tears but said her daughter was right to fight for her son.
"Of course it's worth it," she said, "any mother would do anything for her child."

Gillen approved a motion by Nebus' attorney, May Cain, to temporarily give the father sole decision-making over matters including his son's health and to travel out of state, if needed, to have the circumcision performed. Cain said her client had been receiving death threats and warnings his son would be kidnapped.

"I am fearful that the child might be abducted," Gillen said.

After Hironimus agreed to sign the form and court reconvened, Gillen offered advice to the parents: "You are both going to continue to be the parents to this young man. You're going to have to learn how to deal with that in an amicable, friendly, civil manner. You're going to have to always take into consideration what's in your child's best interest. To the extent that you may differ on things, you're going to have to talk them out. That's what parents do in a civilized society. You do not take the law into your own hands."

Though Chapin and other so-called "intactivists" remained dismayed by the developments, she said Gillen had inadvertently advanced the anti-circumcision cause.

"People who never gave it a thought before are appalled and repulsed," she said.

Editorial: The parallels between Hironimus vs Nebus and Bassanio vs Shylock ("The Merchant of Venice" http://shakespeare.mit.edu/merchant/full.html) are now acute. In both cases, two enemies make a bad contract, with part of a third party's body (a pound of Antonio's flesh, C.R.N.H's foreskin) in hazard. Time passes and circumstances change, but Nebus/Shylock demands his flesh. (Nebus is not Jewish, however. Antisemitism is not part of this case, as it was in Venice.) The case comes to trial, and enter a lawyer with a brilliant defence: Hunker: http://arclaw.org/sites/default/files/hunker-hironimus-civil-rights-complaint-2015-04-13.pdf Portia: "The quality of mercy is not strained, It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven..." Notwithstanding, the case is lost: Ira Marcus, counsel for Nebus: "I guess they felt the handwriting was on the wall." Portia: Why then, thus it is: You must prepare your bosom for his knife. Shylock: O noble judge! O excellent young man! In Venice, Portia waited till the last second before pointing out that "But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate Unto the state of Venice." Does Thomas Hunker have a last-second reprieve for C.R.H.N.?

Earlierstory

FLORIDA: Case abandoned, mother seeks release from jail

Sun-Sentinal (AP)
May 20, 2015

Circumcision battle: Mom seeks release from jail after federal lawsuit is dismissed

By Marc Freeman
A West Boynton mother on Wednesday gave up trying to get a federal judge to stop her 4 1/2-year-old son from being circumcised as his father wishes — a battle that also led to her arrest May 14 on a state court warrant.

An attorney for Heather Hironimus, who lost similar legal challenges in two state courts, notified U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra that she voluntarily dismissed the month-old case, and would be barred from filing it again in federal court.

But at the same time, the 31-year-old mother remained behind bars, charged with interfering with the father's custody of the boy in violation of an order from Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Dana Gillen.

Hironimus — held in Broward County Jail since her arrest after nearly three months of hiding with the boy at a domestic violence shelter — is expected in Gillen's Delray Beach courtroom early Friday. The judge previously said that her get-out-of-jail ticket will be her signature of consent to her son's circumcision. Thomas Hunker, attorney for the mother, told her supporters that his mission now is to try to "Heather get out of jail and preserve her custody rights." Hunker said they quit the federal lawsuit because it appeared hopeless, in light of a hearing Monday where the judge repeatedly questioned the justification for a case already decided by state judges.

"Unfortunately, Judge Marra was not only not sympathetic, he seemed quite hostile toward our position," the attorney wrote in a message shared by circumcision opponents and posted on a Facebook page dedicated to the boy and his mom.

Hunker could not be reached for comment despite calls and an email to his office Wednesday. Previously, he has said he couldn't speak because of a gag order imposed by Gillen.

In his message, he said continuing the federal lawsuit would surely result in "an unfavorable order which could potentially hurt the cause and future efforts to establish a child's right to object to circumcision. I hope you understand and agree that under the circumstances, this was our only available option."

Ira Marcus, attorney for the boy's father, Dennis Nebus of Boca Raton, told the Sun Sentinel he was stunned to learn the case had been withdrawn. He said he gave the news to his client, who took custody of his son when Hironimus was jailed but had not yet attempted to schedule the surgery.

"I'm shocked because they were so aggressive about their position," Marcus said, referring to the mother and her attorney's numerous case pleadings and arguments in court Monday. ["Aggressive" or just thorough?]

Hironimus' sudden decision to quit sparked a wave of anger and sadness among anti-circumcision groups, called "intactivists." They have followed the debate for more than a year, raising money for the mom's legal fund and championing her efforts at local rallies and through social media.

"I am very disappointed that the attorney for the child precipitously abandoned the federal lawsuit," said Georganne Chapin, executive director of Intact America, who attended Monday's federal court hearing. "What we hope for now is that the father will have compassion for his young son, and not compound the trauma of the past few months with the trauma of a medically unnecessary surgery."

Hunker had urged Marra to protect the boy from "physical harm," brain damage or worse from an elective procedure that allegedly violates his constitutional rights.

"This is a potentially life-and-death situation," Hunker said, arguing the child doesn't respond well to general anesthesia and is prone to scarring that could further harm his genitals if he survives. He said the removal of the foreskin from the boy's penis is not "reversible" and violates his right to bodily "integrity."

Hunker, revising claims already made in state court, also said the boy's civil rights were violated because he hasn't had a psychological examination or an independent guardian to speak on his behalf in court, as the mother requested.
...

Earlier story

FLORIDA: Federal court considers restraining order

Sun-Sentinal (AP)
May 18, 2015

Battle over Florida boy's circumcision enters federal court

By Matt Sedensky
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A judge expressed skepticism Monday that a long-running court battle over a Florida boy's circumcision amounted to a constitutional issue worthy of being argued in federal court after being exhaustively litigated in state courts.

In the first hearing on the issue in federal court, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra questioned the attorney for the boy's mother, Heather Hironimus, over the legality of proceeding with the case when a state judge had already ruled.

"Aren't you really asking me to revisit and second-guess?" Marra said near the start of the 80-minute hearing in West Palm Beach.

Already a legal oddity for its subject matter, the long-running case between the boy's estranged parents over the fate of his genitals got an extra dose of drama when Hironimus fled with the child nearly three months ago, going into hiding at a domestic violence shelter while a state judge warned she risked imprisonment for defying orders and refusing to appear in court. She was arrested Thursday and remains jailed.

Though Marra made no ruling in the case, he was often incredulous as Hironimus' attorney, Thomas Hunker, contended the case could continue in federal court because it was filed on behalf of the boy, whereas the state case was simply between the parents. Hunker said the child's interests were not fully and fairly represented in state court and that the boy had the right to make his own wishes known.

"So if the mother wants to have the child's tonsils removed, you have to ask the child?" an obviously dubious Marra asked.
[No ethical doctor would remove a child's tonsils just because a parent wanted them removed.]

Hunker said because the procedure was not performed in the boy's infancy, it had now grown to become a "life-and-death situation" involving the unnecessary risk of anesthesia. Though Marra quickly dismantled Hunker's argument over the fairness of circumcising the boy at all when such a procedure would be barred as genital mutilation if he were a girl, the attorney sought to frame the case as having the ability to protect the constitutional right to bodily integrity.

"There has to be a limit to how far a parent can go to permanently alter a child's body," Hunker said.

Hironimus, 31, and the boy's father, Dennis Nebus, have been warring since her pregnancy. They were never married but share custody of their child, and in a parenting agreement filed in court, the two agreed to the boy's circumcision. The mother later changed her mind, giving way to the long legal battle. Circuit and appellate judges have sided with the father, but potential surgeons have backed out after failing to get the mother's consent and becoming the target of protesters.

The federal case, contending the boy's civil rights were being infringed upon, was filed while Hironimus was missing and her legal options evaporating.

Nebus' attorney, Ira Marcus, said Hunker had not proven any constitutional violation and that Marra had no jurisdiction to prevent the circumcision from proceeding. He said the boy remained in the care of Nebus and that the surgery was not imminently scheduled. Marcus agreed to give Marra 10 days' notice if he was proceeding with an appointment but rejected Hunker's argument that the boy had a say in the matter.

"Minor children, up until the age of majority, do not make elective medical decisions," he said. "Parents make those decisions."

The case has stirred the attention of so-called "intactivists" who reject circumcision as barbaric, and a small group of protesters gathered outside the courthouse with signs including "Free Heather" and "Keep Foreskin and State Separate." One of the advocates, Georganne Chapin, who leads the group Intact America, said the state court had "utterly disregarded the rights and wellbeing of the child."

"It is a sad day in America when a mother is jailed for trying to protect her young son from another adult who is intent on cutting off a normal, healthy part of the boy's genitals," she said.

Earlier story

FLORIDA: Mother of cut-case boy arrested

Sun-Sentinal (Palm Beach, Florida)
May 14, 2015

Mom in circumcision fight found, jailed

by Kate Jacobson
After two months in hiding, Heather Hironimus, the mother at the center of a bitter circumcision battle, was booked Thursday into Broward County Jail, records show.

A Palm Beach County judge in March signed a warrant for Hironimus' arrest for contempt of court after she failed to appear in court with the boy so a circumcision could be performed. According to Broward county records, Hironimus was booked in into the jail just after 6 p.m. Thursday. 

Dennis Nebus, of Boca Raton, testifies in a Palm Beach County court hearing. Nebus and the mother of his son are in a court battle over whether the 4-year-old should be circumcised. Nebus wants the procedure done, while the mother, Heather Hironimus, does not. 

Hironimus has been fighting Dennis Nebus, the father of her child, for years over the circumcision of their son. After the couple split, they decided on a "parenting plan" in 2012 that allowed for Nebus to circumcise the boy.

A state court judge ruled in Nebus' favor in May 2014, and in March ordered Hironimus to hand the boy over.

Hironimus and her son, now 4-1/2, did not show up in court and went into hiding.

In April, Hironimus filed a federal lawsuit against Nebus in an attempt to block the circumcision.

Also listed in the suit is Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Gillen, who made the May 2014 ruling, and Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.

FLORIDA: Appellate court won't halt circumcision for 4-year-old

Sun Sentinal (Palm Beach, Florida)
December 12, 2014

Appellate court won't halt circumcision for 4-year-old Palm Beach County boy

The Palm Beach County boy celebrated his fourth birthday on Oct. 31, and six days later a state appeals court cleared the way for his long-delayed circumcision.

But the child's foreskin has yet to be surgically removed as his father wishes.

The boy's mother insists it is not medically necessary and asked for the unusual case to be heard by the Florida Supreme Court, but her battle may be nearing the end: the 4th District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach Friday denied that request, meaning the procedure appears to be one step closer to taking place.

An army of special interest groups opposed to circumcision has rallied behind the mom. With websites and local demonstrations, these so-called "intactivists" have closely followed the parents' yearlong battle over the boy, Chase Ryan Nebus-Hironimus.

...

Jonathan Friedman, head of an organization called Bloodstained Men, has helped organize a legal bills fundraiser for the mom, Heather Hironimus, on a website called SavingChase.org. He says although the court's ruling clears the way, he doesn't think Chase's circumcision is inevitable.

"The medical community could still stand up for the boy and refuse to do it," Friedman said Friday, after hearing the case may have reached a legal dead end.

Another activist, Rebecca Wald, of Fort Lauderdale, cringes at the thought of the boy being circumcised.

"It's unfortunate the court decided the way that it did," Wald said. "Circumcision is bad enough — but when you have a 4-year-old boy who is terrified to lose part of his penis and will remember it for the rest of his life, it's insanity."

Wald has reported the yearlong court struggle on her website, BeyondtheBris.com. She advocates a ceremony called a Brit Shalom, an alternative to the traditional Jewish custom. Neither the boy's mother nor father, Dennis Nebus, are Jewish, but Wald said she felt compelled to get involved because "what's happening here is so egregious."

Attorneys for the mom and for the dad have declined to comment about the case. The dad has said he believes circumcision is "just the normal thing to do."

...

In an email Tuesday, the father's attorneys told the Sun Sentinel it is "a private family matter." They have previously blasted the mother in court for "parading the child's face and name all over the Internet," granting media interviews, and working with a Facebook page called Chase's Guardians.

...

Earlier story