A BITTER and ongoing legal battle over the decision to circumcise of a four-year-old boy has sparked a heated debate in the US and left the mother languishing in prison.

Heather Hironimus fled with her son, Chase, in the midst of a two year legal dispute with the father of her child, Dennis Nebus, who is insistent the boy gets circumcised.

After going missing for several months with her son, Florida police have now arrested the woman and thrown her in jail. Her crime is not complying with a court order to have her son circumcised.

The case has received national attention and catapulted the issue of circumcision — or genital mutilation as some are calling it — into the headlines and has spurred a public debate on the issue.

Renowned scientist and outspoken atheist, Richard Dawkins has even weighed in on the debate tweeting today: “Mother jailed for refusing to have her 4-yr-old son circumcised. WHAT? Can the world get any madder than this?”

The supporters of Ms Hironimus, 31, are championing the hashtags #FreeHeather and #SaveChase in a concerted online effort to garner support for her situation.

However Mr Nebus currently has the law on his side and testified in court that he wants to see the surgery proceed because “it’s just what’s normal.” That’s according to a press release from a group called Chase’s Guardians who have set up a donations fund for Ms Hironimus’ legal battle as well as a petition to the White House.

The group is headed by Tara Shipely who has never met Ms Hironimus but says herself and a small group of women became incensed when they came across her plea for help in a parenting group early in 2013.

“It was both shocking and infuriating that her ex-boyfriend was using the courts to force a medically unnecessary and potentially traumatising surgery,” she told news.com.au.

Chase’s parents have been warring since his mother was pregnant with him. They were never married but share custody of the four-year-old. When Chase was one, Ms Hironimus signed an agreement to circumcise her child but after doing some research she changed her mind on the procedure, giving way to the long legal battle.

Ms Hironimus was arrested Thursday and was jailed for contempt under the family court order which effectively stipulates she must remain incarcerated until she signs the consent form.

Despite the exhaustive litigation the case has received in state courts, the fight has now entered a US Federal Court and the vitriol over the fate of their son’s penis could continue.

Mr Nebus has filed for a dismissal of the federal case but Ms Hironimus’ lawyer, Thomas Hunker was scathing in his response.

“What is truly irrational is Nebus’ relentless effort to physically and emotionally scar his son by imposing circumcision upon him ... When there is no religious purpose and no medical necessity and the child has expressed that he does not want it,” he wrote to the judge.

However as the trial began yesterday (Monday in the US), the judge expressed scepticism that the boy’s circumcision amounted to a constitutional issue worthy of being argued in federal court after the already extensive litigation.

“Aren’t you really asking me to revisit and second-guess?” District Judge Kenneth Marra said to Mr Hunker near the start of the 80-minute hearing in West Palm Beach.

Mr Hunker has argued the fresh case is filed on behalf of the boy whose wishes were not fully and fairly represented in state court.

Ms Shipely who has followed the original case very closely agrees and says the judge’s focus “was entirely on whether the parenting agreement should be upheld or not. He seemed to view it as any other line item in a contract,” she said.

But judge Marra has appeared outwardly derisive of Mr Hunker’s plea to take into account the wishes of the child. “So if the mother wants to have the child’s tonsils removed, you have to ask the child?” an obviously dubious Marra asked.

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

Already a legal oddity for its subject matter, the long-running case between the boy’s estranged parents 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.

After being arrested on Thursday, she remains in jail and is being held without bail.

While state judges have sided with the father, potential surgeons have backed out after failing to get the mother’s consent and becoming the target of protesters.

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.

For the time being Ms Hironimus remains in jail while Chase is in the care of his father. No surgery has been imminently scheduled.