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→Informed consent for non-therapeutic circumcision of minor boys
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 bettween informed consent and informed permission is unclear. When a child is ill, it is the practice to allow a parent to grant consent informed for diagnostic tests and appropriate treatment.<ref name="aap1995">{{REFjournal
|last=Bioethics Committee, American Academy of Pediatrics.
|first=
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" /> If the medical industry had actually followed this sound ethical guidance, then the circumcision of male infants would have ended abruptly. The medical industry has chosen to ignore this advice and allow parents to grant consent for non-therapeutic circumcision of male children, so that the physician income derived from circumcision may be maintained.
Svoboda ''et al''. (2002) examined the matter validity of informed consent for non-therapeutic neonatal circumcision.