Hello, faithful readers! It's time for another Facepalm Friday!
And, boy, is this one going to be a doozy.
Unlike the usual Facepalm Fridays where I talk about several different issues, this whole post is going to be about one. One big mother f-ing issue that I have with the American justice system.
If you're a proponent of routine infant circumcision, then you might want to turn away. I'm not going to pull too many punches here.
Okay?
Right.
So a lot of you have heard about the Heather Hironimus/Chase courtroom affair that's been playing out these last several months (especially since I mentioned it last week). This case is now over.
And stupidity won.
Yep. The lawyer, one Thomas Hunker, withdrew the federal case. There is some talk amongst the intactivist community as to whether or not this was corrupt lawyering or something else. I don't know. What I do know is that Mr. Hunker never consulted with anyone in the intactivist community before dropping the case...and that, when questioned by Judge Gillen, acknowledged us as "fringe elements" that he had not spoken to recently and would not again.
Hey, dude! Who was paying your $50000 bill, anyway? Oh, right. It was those freaky fringe element intactivists, wasn't it?
/shaking my head...
But that's not the worst of it. Heather was brought into court and threatened by the judge that, if she did not sign the consent form to have Chase circumcised, she would lose custody and stay in prison for an indeterminate amount of time.
Wait, what? Read that back to me.
Since when has holding a gun to someone's head been an acceptable means of getting them to accept a medical procedure? Even IF you grant that Chase can't make this decision for himself (he's been very clear on the fact he doesn't want it), and you say that the parent(s) need to be able to make that decision for him...how can you coerce that decision? This isn't a gestapo state, or it's not supposed to be; it's the United States of America! Freedom? Personal rights? Remember that crap?
I don't understand how this can happen in a court of law. I don't care if you were circumcised, if you think it's the best goddamn thing since sliced bread to come along. You're there to uphold the Constitution, the laws of the land, and that doesn't include terrifying a mother by threatening to take her son away so that she'll let bits of him be cut off.
To that end, I'm joining a campaign started by Chase's Guardians, a Facebook group that helped raise the legal fees for the court cases and is dedicated to protecting him. We've already reached out to the urologists and surgeons in Florida, and none of them will perform the surgery. Now Dennis has 90 days to get the procedure done, and we're expanding our reach, writing to every single goddamned pediatric surgeon and urologist in the country to keep this from happening.
Because it's wrong.
This isn't about whether or not you believe circumcision is good or bad, healthy or traumatic, whatever. This is about coercion, about forcing someone to agree to something that they don't want. This is legal rape.
For that, and I never thought I'd have to do this, I went to find a facepalm worse than the Batman one I gave this last week. And I did.
So, congratulations, Dennis Nebus and Judge Gillen...you receive the BABY FACEPALM!
No comments:
Post a Comment