Changes

The American Academy of Pediatrics had been acutely embarrassed by the faults of [[Edgar J. Schoen| Edgar Schoen]]'s horrific circumcision policy statement, so a new task force was convened under the direction of Carole Marie Lannon, {{MD}}, {{MPH}}, to produce a new, more appropriate, and less embarrassing policy statement on non-therapeutic child circumcisionwhich was published in Pediatrics in September 1999.<ref name="aap1999">{{REFjournal |last=Lannon |first=Carole Marie |init= |author-link= |last2=Bailey |first2=Ann Geryl Doll |init2= |author2-link= |last3=Fleishman |first3=Alan R. |init3= |author3-link= |last4=Kaplan |first4=George W. |init4= |author4-link= |last5=Shoemaker |first5=Craig T. |init5= |author5-link= |last6=Swanson |first6=Jack T. |init6= |author6-link= |last7=Coustan |first7=Donald |init7= |author7-link= |etal=no |title=Circumcision Policy Statement |trans-title= |language= |journal=Pediatrics |location= |date=1999-09 |volume=103 |issue=3 |article= |page= |pages=686-93 |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/aap1999/ |archived= |quote= |pubmedID= 22926180 |pubmedCID= |DOI=10.1542/peds.2012-1989 |accessdate=2021-10-10}}</ref>

The AAP asserted in their 1999 Circumcision Policy Statement that parents have a right to decide to circumcise their children based on cultural or religious factors (although they removed any mention of esthetics as a possible parental motivation, despite previous inclusion in their 1989 statement). No further substantiation of this right was offered. Whether or not a medical benefit was required for parents to make this choice was also not addressed. <br>

The AAP has no official position on whether a baby can refuse a procedure, nor does it specify if crying in pain counts as reluctance or refusal. However, they do write that a patient's discomfort should be taken into account, and that children should have the necessity of a procedure communicated to them.<ref name="Fleischmann 1994"/> (It might would follow that inability to do so means that proceeding with an intervention that could be harmlessly deferred constitutes needless violation of patient autonomy, or inadequate consent):