Aug 6, 2004 tvnz.co.nz

Cloning and designer babies are expected to be banned under a proposed law that has taken eight years of debate.

MPs are to have their final say in three weeks on the bill that will regulate all areas of artificial reproduction, but it is expected that the technology's more controversial applications will be banned.

In vitro fertilisation is now common practice and will be allowed under the bill, but bans are expected on cloning, genetically modifying embryos, using eggs taken from foetuses, putting human eggs in animals and vice versa and choosing the sex of the baby except when preventing a genetic disorder.

Also banned under the bill will be paying women to have a baby for someone else - a practice also known as paid surrogacy.

The bill will also regulate sperm donation and means those using donated eggs or sperm will have to tell their children how they were conceived. The child will conceived under those circumstances will also be able to find out who the donor is.

However, despite the restrictions in the proposed legislation, there remains concern the new rules are too loose.

Those concerns centre around the bill's provision allowing the minister to act on advice from officials, not after full consultation with parliament.

Green Party MP Sue Kedgley says that is not good enough.

"What this bill sets up is one of the most permissive regimes governing human-assisted reproductive technology in the world and it really leaves it as a very laissez faire approach," she says.

But reproductive specialist Dr Richard Fisher disagrees with Kedgley's assessment.

"I think it is a very good balance between the people practising medicine, the consumers and the community in general."

The bill is due to be debated in three weeks and changes could still be made at that time. However, after eight years of talking, MPs appear keen to see it become law as soon as possible, with modifications unlikely.