Commercial surrogacy should be legal, an Otaki mother who wants to have children for others told MPs today.

Maewa Kaihau made the plea in her submission on the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill to Parliament's health select committee.

She "strongly disagreed" with it being an offence to be paid for a surrogacy arrangement, she said.

While surrogacy is not illegal, being paid a fee for it is.

"Commercial surrogacy should be allowed," Ms Kaihau said.

"Legislation to prohibit surrogates from receiving payments or benefits for the act of carrying a child for the commissioning parents should not be approved."

While she would be a surrogate mother without payment, there should be compensation for the time and energy involved in carrying and giving birth to a baby, she said.

A surrogate mother could incur a large range of legitimate expenses that should be reimbursed, she said.

Among these were travel expenses to a maternity carer, loss of wages and child care costs as a result of pregnancy related illness, and payment of prescriptions arising from pregnancy, such as pills to treat iron deficiency.

"The proposal to prohibit surrogates from receiving benefit or payments does not recognise in any way the service that a surrogate provides," she said.

Ms Kaihau is a member of an e-mail group interested in surrogacy.

Members were surrogates, intending parents and women interested in becoming surrogates, she said.

She wanted to help a couple she had met on the internet have a child. They had failed to conceive after many IVF (in vitro fertilisation) attempts.

"Sometimes surrogacy is the last option," Ms Kaihau said.

Her partner supported her stand, she said.

"He is quietly supportive of me, he thinks I am a bit crazy to want to do that, but he generally supports what I want to do. I am very lucky," she said.

"We've decided that we've had our family and we're not having any more."

Women's Health Action Trust said in its submission that assisted reproductive technology (ART) was creating social dilemmas.

Its discussion document -- Protecting Our Future, written by health campaigners Sandra Coney and Anne Else -- assumed children should be the focal point of public discussion around ART and infertility sector practice.

The document outlined the case for greater regulation of ART.

"The full consequences of allowing ART to proceed in a largely deregulated environment will become apparent only as the children born through it grow into adulthood," it said.

"There must be greater regulation of ART and this will involve comprehensive legislation."

Under the proposed law, children born using assisted human reproduction technology will be able to track down sperm donors.

Cloning, commercial surrogacy, placing human embryos in animals and vice versa, and the creation of hybrid embryos for reproduction are banned.

Other areas such as embryo donation, selection, storage and splitting would be dealt with by an ethics committee approving individual applications.

Those applications would only be considered if a ministerial advisory committee had already produced guidelines or established procedures on the particular application type.

A ministerial advisory committee would be set up to create guidelines, which would be enforced by a Cabinet decision known as an Order in Council.

The Government has also decided to overturn the current status quo concerning the anonymity of donors.

Families do not have to tell children the circumstances of their conception, but can do so at any time.

When a donor offspring reaches age 18, or 16 with the permission of the Family Court, they will be able to get identifying information about the donor.

A donor will be told if their contribution has resulted in a child being born, but they cannot get identifying details about the child without the prior consent of the offspring.

The law will not be retrospective.