The Commission believes that this procedure is desirable because each of the three subjects raises important discrete issues as well as issues that are common to all. We believe that the community will be better served by separate Inquiries.

A reading of Chapter 4, for example, will indicate the value of this approach because it presents, for the first time, aspects of AI that ought to be considered without reference to other means of artificial conception. The Commission's recommendations in Chapter 4 differ markedly from the recommendations made on AI by other Inquiries (for example the Queensland Inquiry), organizations (for example the Council of Europe) and jurisdictions (for example Victoria), which have not drawn the distinction between AI as an act performed by private persons and AI carried out as a continuing practice. Our conclusion is that attempts by the law to regulate and control every act of AI are unlikely to be effective. Legal regulation of the act of AI could not be policed or monitored and would be likely to be ignored, creating a risk of bringing the law into contempt.

Separate presentation of this Report will enable the Parliament to focus attention directly on AI without the risk of being diverted to controversial issues and questions intimately bound up with related but different procedures such as IVF. For example, the moral status of the fertilized human ovum or pre-embryo has attracted a great deal of public attention, but that question arises in the context of IVF not AI. It seems to us that discussion of such questions could diminish or divert discussion and consideration of important issues raised by AI (and surrogate motherhood) if all three subjects were presented to the Parliament in one legislative measure, as has already happened in another Australian jurisdiction.

In making its recommendations, the Commission has borne in mind practical aspects of government administration in New South Wales. We have endeavoured to present the recommendations in such a way that those matters which fall within the jurisdiction of separate departments, such as Health, Attorney General and Youth and Community Services, may be readily identified.

The Commission has been assisted by many persons in its work on AI. The Division which has produced this Report comprises the following Commissioners:

Mr Keith Mison QC (Chairman)

Mr Russell Scott (Deputy Chairman and Commissioner-in-charge of Reference)

Dr Susan Fleming

Eva Learner

The Honourable Justice Peter Nygh

The Commission is also indebted, for their advice and comments, to its Honorary Consultants, appointed for the purposes of the Reference. They are named in the terms of reference and participants page.

The Commission wishes particularly to acknowledge the outstanding contribution by way of research and written material made by its Legal Research Consultant, Ms Fiona Curtis. It also wishes to make specific reference to the assistance it has received from Legal Research Consultants, Miss Yvonne Williams and Mr Ian Collie.

Submitted with this Report, is draft legislation which reflects the Commission's recommendations. The recommendations themselves appear in bold type in the respective Chapters in which they are made, namely Chapters 4-15 inclusive. We wish to record our thanks to Parliamentary Counsel, Mr D R Murphy and in particular to Assistant Parliamentary Counsel, Mr D Colagiuri for their assistance and advice on the form and content of the draft legislation.

Keith Mason QC
Chairman

Russell Scott
Commissioner-in-charge

Date: June 1986