on medical practice and public opinion. In 1949, a lack of consensus in the medical community as to whether circumcision carried with it any notable health benefit motivated the United Kingdom's newly formed National Health Service to remove infant circumcision from its list of covered services. Since then, circumcision has been an out-of-pocket cost to parents, and the proportion of circumcised men is around 9%. Similar trends have operated in Canada, (where public medical insurance is universal, and where private insurance does not replicate services already paid from the public purse) individual provincial health insurance plans began delisting non-therapeutic circumcision in the 1980s. Manitoba was the final province to delist non-therapeutic circumcision, which occurred in 2005. The practice has also declined to about nine percent of newborn boys in Australia and is almost unknown in New Zealand. See also Bioethics of neonatal circumcision Children's rights Circumcision controversies Ethics of circumcision Prevalence of circumcision References Further reading External links Jewish Encyclopedia: Circumcision VIDEO – Male Circumcision: History, Ethics and Surgical Considerations Dr. Benjamin Mandel speaks at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, December 2007. The History of Circumcision website Circumcision