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The incidence of non-therapeutic child circumcision in Australia started to decline after the publication of the Belmaine (1971) letter. By 1978, only 50 percent of newborn boys were being circumcised.
The [[Australasian Association of Paediatric Surgeons]] issued a statement on non-therapeutic circumcsion of children in 1996. The statement pointed out the [[human rights]] violations and said in part:
<blockquote>
We do not support the removal of a normal part of the body, unless there are definite indications to justify the complications and risks which may arise. In particular, we are opposed to male children being subjected to a procedure, which had they been old enough to consider the advantages and disadvantages, may well have opted to reject the operation and retain their prepuce.<ref name=leditschke1996>{{REFdocument
|title=Guidelines for Circumcision
|trans-title=
|language=
|url=http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/aaps/
|contribution=
|quote=
|trans-quote=
|quote-lang=
|last=Leditschke
|first=J. Fred
|author-link=
|publisher=Australasian Association of Paediatric Surgeons
|format=
|date=1996
|accessdate=2019-11-27
}}</ref>
</blockquote>
The incidence of circumcision continued to decline, so that by 1996, when the Australian College of Paediatrics issued a statement, it reported that the incidence of "routine" (i.e. non-therapeutic) circumcision was estimated at ten percent of newborn boys.<ref name-"acp1996>{{REFweb