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→Third policy (1989): add section.
|accessdate=2020-03-31
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===Statement on medical ethics===
The Committee on Bioethics of the AAP issued a statement on bioethics and consent in 1995 that has caused great difficulty for the promoters of male non-therapeutic circumcision of non-consenting infants at the AAP. The statement provides in part:
<blockquote>
We now realize that the doctrine of "informed consent" has only limited direct application in pediatrics. 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.<ref>{{REFjournal
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|first=Arthur
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|last2=Clayton
|first2=Ellen Wright
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|last3=Frader
|first3=Joel E.
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|etal=yes
|title=Informed consent, parental permission, and assent in pediatric practice.
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|journal=Pediatrics
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|date=1995-02
|volume=95
|issue=2
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|page=
|pages=314-7
|url=http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/AAP/
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|pubmedID=7838658
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|accessdate=2021-07-23
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</blockquote>
Non-therapeutic circumcision of children is neither diagnosis nor treatment, so the statement is saying that parents do ''not'' authority to consent to non-therapeutic circumcision of children. This has caused problems for future advocates of male non-therapeutic circumcision at the AAP, so they have adopted a work-around policy. Future statements regarding male non-therapeutic circumcision resorted to citing a non-germane statement on the medical ethics of sick and dying children. Non-therapeutic circumcision of children, however, is performed only on healthy children who can withstand the pain and stress of the amputation.
===Fourth policy (1999)===