"Intactivist" Mom Arrested for Refusing to Circumcise Her Four-Year-Old
The Florida mom who took her four-year-old son on the run for months after a court ordered her to have him circumcised has been arrested.
Heather Hironimus has been fighting over her son Chase’s foreskin in court for more than a year. When she split up with Chase’s dad, Dennis Nebus, in 2012, she signed a parenting agreement saying he could schedule a circumcision, but later changed her mind.
A Florida court initially ordered the circumcision in May 2014, when Chase was 3. Hironimus was able to get an emergency order that delayed the procedure, but was finally ordered to go through with it in March of this year.
Rather than comply, Hironimus disappeared with Chase while “intactivists”—anti-circumcision advocates—took up her son’s penis as a rallying point, donating thousands to Hironimus’s legal battle and an “awareness campaign” called Saving Chase.
Hironimus is currently suing Nebus and the judge who approved the circumcision, arguing that it’s not medically necessary and that Chase doesn’t want it. Jeffrey Gillen, the judge who issued the May 2014 ruling, based his decision on testimony from a pediatric urologist that circumcision lowers the risk of penile cancer and of AIDS.
Last December, the Centers for Disease Control issued a new federal guideline saying the health benefits of circumcision outweigh the risks, and the procedure should be covered by medical insurance.
Intactivists don’t support “traumatic genital surgery,” even in newborns, claiming its health benefits are insignificant and it unnecessarily deprives baby boys of future sexual pleasure.
Hironimus “has been in Broward County Jail since Thursday on Palm Beach County charges, including interference with custody and writ of bodily attachment,” ABC reports.
[Photo: Broward County Sheriff’s Office]