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This section is for all parents of boys, but is addressed primarily to parents of boys who are located in the [[United States of America]], who appear to be most uninformed or misinformed about the [[foreskin]] and [[circumcision]]. Information is not making it to parents. Studies have shown that doctors provide parents with almost no accurate or useful information about circumcision. After several generations of promotion of and near universal neonatal circumcision in the United States, most Americans are profoundly ignorant of a normal body part and its valuable functions.
=== Surrogate consent ===
Parents act as surrogates for their minor children who are too young to personally grant consent. Surrogate consent ethically is limited to the granting of consent for diagnosis and treatment of disease.<ref name="aap1995">{{REFjournal
|last=Committee on Bioethics
|etal=no
|title=Informed consent, parental permission, and assent in pediatric practice
|trans-title=
|language=
|journal=Pediatrics
|location=
|date=1995-02
|volume=95
|issue=2
|article=
|page=
|pages=314-7
|url=http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/AAP/
|archived=
|quote=
|pubmedID=7838658
|pubmedCID=
|DOI=
|accessdate=2023-09-14
}}</ref> <ref name="aviva2016">{{REFjournal
|last=Committee on Bioethics
|etal-no
|title=Informed Consent in Decision-Making in Pediatric Practice
|trans-title=
|language=
|journal=Pediatrics
|location=
|date=2016-08
|volume=138
|issue=2
|article=
|page=e20161484.
|pages=
|url=https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/138/2/e20161484/52512/Informed-Consent-in-Decision-Making-in-Pediatric?autologincheck=redirected
|archived=
|quote=
|pubmedID=27456514
|pubmedCID=
|DOI=
|doi=10.1542/peds.2016-1484
|accessdate=2023-09-14
}}</ref>
===Provision of relevant information===
|issue=3
|pages=318-323
}}</ref><ref>{{REFjournal
|last=Goldman
|init=R
However, the vast and overwhelming majority of circumcisions of children are performed to excise healthy, functional tissue from the body of a child who is too immature to grant consent.
The Bioethics Committee of the [[American Academy of Pediatrics]] (1995) considered the power granted to parents to grant surrogate consent for diagnosis and treatment of a child. The Committee says that a parent may give "informed permission" for investigation and treatment of disease. The difference between informed consent and informed permission is unclear. When a child is ill, it is the practice to allow a parent to grant informed permission for diagnostic tests and appropriate treatment.<ref name="aap1995">{{REFjournal |last=Bioethics Committee, American Academy of Pediatrics. |first= |author-link= |etal=no |title=Informed consent, parental permission, and assent in pediatric practice |trans-title= |language= |journal=Pediatrics |location= |date=1995-02 |volume=95 |issue=2 |pages=314-7 |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/AAP/ |archived= |quote=Only patients who have appropriate decisional capacity and legal empowerment can give their informed consent to medical care. In all other situations, parents or other surrogates provide informed permission for diagnosis and treatment of children with the assent of the child whenever appropriate. |pubmedID=7838658 |pubmedCID= |DOI= |accessdate=2020-07-23}}</ref>
Infant boys are born with a healthy [[foreskin]]. No disease or deformity is present to be diagnosed or treated. [[Circumcision]] of an infant boy is neither a diagnostic procedure nor a treatment for disease. The limited parental surrogate powers to grant informed permission recognized by the Bioethics Committee do not extend to the granting of permission or consent for the non-therapeutic circumcision of a minor child.<ref name="aap1995" />
|DOI=10.1162/152651603766436342
|accessdate=2023-05-24
}}</ref>
Bioethicists Myers & Earp (2020) answered Hill's question. They exhaustively reviewed the evidence for and against the alleged health benefits to a healthy person claimed for non-therapeutic [[circumcision]] of a neonate, infant or child. They balanced this against the [[pain]], [[trauma]], and loss of body tissue and function. They concluded the claimed health benefits are insufficient to support surrogate consent for non-therapeutic circumcision. Given this, ''only'' the subject can grant consent for a non-therapeutic circumcision, and then ''only'' after he reaches the right age for circumcision, which does not occurs until a male reaches the age of consent in his jurisdiction which may vary from 16 to 18 years of age. No other person may grant consent for the non-therapeutic circumcision of a minor boy. The present practice in the [[United States]] and elsewhere of allowing parental surrogate consent for non-therapeutic circumcision is entirely unethical because it exceeds the powers granted to surrogates.<ref name="myers2020">{{REFjournal
|last=Myers
|first=
|init=A
|author-link=Alex Myers
|last2=Earp
|first2=
|init2=BD
|author2-link=Brian D. Earp
|etal=no
|title=What is the best age to circumcise? A medical and ethical analysis
|trans-title=
|language=
|journal= Bioethics
|location=
|date=2020
|volume=34
|issue=7
|pages=645-63
|url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brian-Earp-2/publication/337720859_What_Is_the_Best_Age_to_Circumcise_A_Medical_and_Ethical_Analysis/links/5f815f61a6fdccfd7b555395/What-Is-the-Best-Age-to-Circumcise-A-Medical-and-Ethical-Analysis.pdf
|archived=
|quote=Based on a careful consideration of the relevant evidence, arguments and counterarguments, we conclude that medically unnecessary penile circumcision-like other medically unnecessary genital procedures, such as 'cosmetic' labiaplasty-should not be performed on individuals who are too young (or otherwise unable) to provide meaningful consent to the procedure.
|pubmedID=32068898
|pubmedCID=
|DOI=
|doi=10.1111/bioe.12714
|format=PDF
|accessdate=2023-09-17
}}</ref>