Surrogate motherhood is an arrangement where a woman agrees to become pregnant and to bear a child for other people and then to give custody of that child to them at or shortly after birth. The Commission recommended reforms of the law in this area in 1988 as part of its review of the law relating to artificial conception.

The Commission's main recommendations were that:

• surrogate motherhood should be discouraged by all practicable legal and social means; and
• entering a surrogacy agreement for money should be illegal.

The NSW Department of Health has also reviewed the law relating to surrogate motherhood. You can find further information on surrogacy in Part 9 of the Department's 1998 discussion paper on assisted reproductive technologies.