#SavingChase: Judge Orders Mom Arrested For Violating Agreement To Have Her 4-Year-Old Son Circumcised

judgeandgavel

From the Florida Sun Sentinel (if that link is paywall blocked, try this indirect link).

Despite the threat of being jailed Tuesday, a West Boynton mother hid with her 4-year-old son in a domestic violence shelter, the latest twist in a widely reported court fight to stop the boy’s planned circumcision.

But Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Dana Gillen still signed a warrant for Heather Hironimus’ arrest, refusing requests from her lawyers to first consider a mental health exam of the boy and appointing an independent guardian to speak on the child’s behalf in court. […]

On Friday, Gillen declared the mom in contempt of court for violating an order enforcing a 2012 parenting plan, which makes the dad responsible for arranging the circumcision. The mom and dad did not marry either before or after the boy’s birth on Oct. 31, 2010.[…]

“I will allow her to avoid incarceration or get out of jail if she signs the consent to the procedure,” [Judge] Gillen said Friday.

The judge found the mom had willfully violated the plan she signed when the boy was 1. The judge also said Hironimus had committed a “direct, contemptuous violation” of court orders by continuing to team with circumcision opposition groups — called “intactivists” — that have “plastered” the child’s photos and name “all over the Internet.” […]

The father says the boy has a condition called phimosis, which prevents retraction of the foreskin, but the mother has said there is no such diagnosis.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says the benefits of newborn male circumcision are lower risks of urinary tract infections; getting penile cancer; and acquiring HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Judge Gillen mentioned these benefits in court last week, and called the procedure “very, very safe.”

My goodness – so much to unpack here.

1) In essence, what the court is doing is enforcing a shared child custody agreement. From the Judge’s perspective, ordering the mom to comply with an agreement to go along with the circumcision of her son is no different from ordering the mom to comply with an agreement to give up custody on alternate weekends. If someone continuously refuses to comply with a court-enforced agreement, being thrown in jail is a widely-accepted last-ditch method for courts to force compliance.

2) This story is news because it involves involuntary circumcision. But really, this sort of thing is bound to come up in a society in which involuntary circumcision of boys is a legal and normal thing. In other words, the problem isn’t this judge or this court case; it’s that circumcision of underage boys is considered normal parenting in our society.1

3) Nonetheless, I think Judge Gillen has made the wrong decision. A four year old is not a one year old, and forcing a four year old to have an unwanted circumcision is taking a big, and needless, chance of creating long-term trauma.2

4) Mary Elizabeth Williams, writing about this case in Salon several months ago, made a good point:

Ultimately, though, it seems pretty obvious that what we have here is a mother who feels strongly that her son should not be circumcised, and a father whose commitment to having his son undergo the procedure was so casual he put it off until the kid was almost four years old. Yes, a contract was signed. But were it a true priority the circumcision would have been done a long time ago. And at a certain point, it’s fair to reassess and understand that a preschooler is not a baby, and that compassionate parenting means erring on the side of being as minimally invasive as possible.

5) James Smith, in the comments at Reason, argues (I think persuasively, but of course I’m no lawyer) that this is technically not a matter of contract law, but of Family Court law. So if that sort of technicality interests you, go over to Reason and search for Smith’s comments.

6) The father’s argument that the circumcision is medically necessary doesn’t seem persuasive to me (there are alternative treatments for phimosis), and I suspect didn’t matter much to the Court. (That is, I think the Judge would have made the same decision, based on enforcing the parenting plan, regardless of the claim of medical necessity.)

7) I don’t like the judge ordering the parties not to speak about the case publicly, because that goes against free speech. (So good on the mother for refusing to comply with that order). There are cases where gag orders are necessary (for instance, in a case involving the identity of informants whose lives could be endangered), but I don’t see why this case is one. UPDATE: As Mythago points out in the comments, I misunderstood what was going on.

8) Some parents have protested Judge Gillen’s decision by posting photos of their small kids holding up protest signs: “The irony — of people arguing that boys shouldn’t be circumcised until they can consent yet using their own toddlers to make points in social media campaigns — was not lost on some commenters.” But I agree with Ophelia Benson, who says that the equivalence doesn’t hold water.

9) I’m skeptical that it will do any good, but there’s a petition to sign here.

  1. I say “of children” because I have no objection to a grown-up choosing to have a circumcision for themselves. []
  2. Some anti-circumcision activists would argue that all circumcision is a kind of long-term trauma, but – even though I oppose child circumcision – I can’t say I find my own infant circumcision to have been lastingly traumatic. []
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12 Responses to #SavingChase: Judge Orders Mom Arrested For Violating Agreement To Have Her 4-Year-Old Son Circumcised

  1. 1
    nobody.really says:

    From time to time I comment on Amp’s great skill in finding just the right picture to illustrate his posts.

    Yeah, I’m taking it back now.

  2. 2
    Ampersand says:

    That graphic (which I’ve now changed) was the sort of thing that seems daring and funny at 4am but looks like a terrible idea when I wake up and look at it again. Oy!

  3. 3
    mythago says:

    While I’m absolutely not a supporter of routine circumcision, this is a pretty selective unpacking.

    Incarceration is a last-ditch attempt to enforce compliance with any court order, not just family court orders; that’s why the (entirely justified) uproar over indigent parents being jailed for failure to comply with child support orders, when “failure to comply” really means “absolute poverty”.

    And as there seems to have been a long history of noncooperation and legal proceedings, it strikes me as disingenuous to claim that the father doesn’t really care or he would have had it done years ago. If this were a domestic order saying that a father was required to provide child support, and there was a court fight years later about it, would you be sneering that the mom clearly didn’t give a shit about the money?

    Circumcision is sometimes the correct treatment for phimosis. Whether the boy actually has phimosis isn’t clear – it’s possible that as the dad simply wants his son circumcised because reasons, the diagnosis and prescribed circumcision are questionable. That may have influenced the judge to the extent that disobeying a court order is going to be particularly problematic when disobedience affects a child’s well-being. As you say, it’s not clear that influenced the judge’s decision here (for all I can glean, he thinks the claim about phimosis is nonsense).

    The articles also strongly imply that the mother has terrified her son into thinking he’s going to have his penis cut off. However much she may oppose circumcision, or however unnecessary the procedure is, this is a very young child. If he can’t consent then he sure as hell shouldn’t be filled with the notion that bad things might happen to him.

  4. 4
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    These things tend to get presented as two options (jail, circ) but in fact it has THREE options.

    1) Get the kid circumcised, i.e. follow the prior settlement agreement.

    2) Tell the court to go piss off, and get put in jail.

    3) Go back to court, and try to convince the court to re-work it’s original order. This is called a “modification.” It actually happens all the time.

    Since it was in the context of a settlement agreement, it may require a high level of convincing. Perhaps this might require the mother to give up a lot of things SHE got (settlement agreements are usually mutually beneficial, and courts don’t look well on people who try to keep their benefits without giving up their costs.) that could also be why she isn’t taking that tactic.

    7) I don’t like the judge ordering the parties not to speak about the case publicly, because that goes against free speech. (So good on the mother for refusing to comply with that order). There are cases where gag orders are necessary (for instance, in a case involving the identity of informants whose lives could be endangered), but I don’t see why this case is one.

    Yes. It is, however, the role of a family court to take actions which protect the child. It’s unquestionably interfering w/ their rights of free speech and I think it’s unwarranted here, but in theory the courts have a lot of authority over parents. It can certainly be the case that one parents desire to harm the other or to “be right” is contrary to the interests of the kids.

  5. 5
    mythago says:

    According to the linked news story, the judge’s stated concern was that mom and anti-circumcision activists had put the child’s full name and photograph “all over the internet”.

    And what gin-and-whiskey said re: option #3. The mother was not ordered to jail for failing to circumcise her son. She was ordered to jail because the court told her to show up with the child in court for a hearing, and she didn’t.

  6. 6
    nobody.really says:

    From time to time I comment on Amp’s great skill in finding just the right picture to illustrate his posts.

    Yeah, I’m taking it back now.

    Oh, hey, I’m sorry: I was joking! I was simply struck by how Amp’s use of the image was both innocent and edgy — quite a combination. I didn’t really mean to dis Amp’s use of the photo. Honest this time!

  7. 7
    Ampersand says:

    It wasn’t just you, NR! No worries.

  8. 8
    Copyleft says:

    What does a doctor say about the phimosis claim? If a medical problem may be involved, that would seem to be the most urgent aspect of the case to address (or disprove).

  9. 9
    mythago says:

    Amp, according to your initial link, the judge issued the gag order on March 10. He rescinded it the following day on request by a newspaper, and it appears that it was not a ban on ‘discussing the case’ but on publishing the child’s name or identifying the child:

    http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/palm-beach/fl-childs-name-sun-sentinel-hearing-2-20150311-story.html

    It’s not clear what has happened in the interim in the case.

  10. 10
    resident_alien says:

    Does the kid genuinely suffer from phimosis or is that simply the father’s excuse for wanting to have the kid’s body permanently modified to suit his preferences?
    What about non-surgical treatments for phimosis (common in Europe where penile circumcision isn’t as de rigeur as it is in the USA) ?
    What’s that nonsense about circumcision as HIV prevention? Even if that hadn’t been debunked already (which it has been) , the kid is four years old. He’s got another ten years at least befor he has to worry about sexually transmitted dieases – if he’s qiute precocious – and why not just teach him to waer condoms?

  11. 11
    Ampersand says:

    He rescinded it the following day on request by a newspaper, and it appears that it was not a ban on ‘discussing the case’ but on publishing the child’s name or identifying the child:

    Thanks for the info. Obviously, I was wrong in my original post; my bad.

  12. 12
    Spoonwood says:

    The vast majority of boys can’t retract their foreskins at age 4. http://www.cirp.org/library/normal/ Foreskin retraction shouldn’t even get considered as an issue until the boy can do it for himself, because the foreskin is fused to the glans of the penis at birth. Forced retractions literally tear skin apart.

    There is no reason at all that retraction of the foreskin should even get considered for a four year old:

    “Retraction of the foreskin should never be forced. It will retract when it is ready. There is no “right” age for retraction to occur.”

    What in the world is the purpose of foreskin retraction in the first place? From what I can tell, it’s usually so that the boy or man can have an erection. Nothing that a 4 year old boy needs to worry about for years.