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This document collects together a number of reflections on the statutory time limit for maintaining human embryos in culture. This issue was raised for consideration at the Nuffield Council's annual 'forward look' meeting in February 2016. It was given an additional impetus the following month by the publication of research that suggested, for the first time, the possibility that embryos could be cultured for longer than 14 days (the current statutory limit in the UK). This led the Council to hold a workshop with the range of experts to discuss whether, after 25 years, there may be persuasive reasons to review this legal limit or whether the reasons for its introduction remain sound. * Professor Montgomery is Professor of Health Care Law, University College London and was Chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (2012-17). A second set of arguments that were outside the scope of this piece of work but that would be relevant to a full reconsideration concern the relationship of the 14-day question to other social currents. We have already noted concerns about 'slippery slope' arguments that are held in some quarters. It is likely that any discussion of the embryo research rules would be affected by public confidence in the integrity of scientists. The experience of recent Parliamentary interventions, such as the developments in the regulation of mitochondrial replacement therapies, would also be 6 Legislation.gov.uk

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On April 3, 2015, a group of prominent biologists and ethicists called for a worldwide moratorium on human genetic engineering in which the genetic modifications would be passed on to future generations. Describing themselves as “interested stakeholders,” the group held a retreat in Napa, California, in January to “initiate an informed discussion” of CRISPR/Cas9 genome engineering technology, which could enable high‐precision insertion, deletion, and recoding of genes in human eggs, sperm, and embryos. The group declared that the advent of a technology that makes human germ‐line genetic engineering plausible makes a corollary discussion of its ethical implications urgent. Echoing this sentiment, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine have announced plans to convene an international summit in fall 2015 to assess the implications of CRISPR/Cas9. Yet the notion that the advent of this particular technology is the warrant for initiating a public discussion is remarkable, and so too is the idea that the experts who have brought it into being and are putting it to use are best positioned to define the terms of the debate. The relevant ethical questions are by no means specific, let alone subsidiary, to the CRISPR/Cas9 technology. They are longstanding questions about what features of human life ought not be taken as objects of manipulation and control. They are questions about our responsibilities to our children and our children's children, where the mark of our actions will be inscribed upon their bodies and their lives.