ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a recent advisory report by the Dutch Health Council, which played an important role in the preparatory process leading to the announced bill. According to the most controversial recommendation in this report, new legislation should, under conditions, allow the creation of human embryos for research purposes. This would also affect ratification of the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine of the Council of Europe, to which the Netherlands is one of the co-signatories. The in vitro fertilization (IVF)-committee was set up in 1994 in order to provide the then Secretary of State with information relevant to the necessary revision of regulations governing IVF-centres. These regulations stemmed from the mid-eighties, the period in which IVF was introduced in the Netherlands. The chapter concludes with some tentative remarks about the announced new Bill on the Handling of Human Gametes and Embryos.
