In a lecture given at Ormond College, Melbourne in July 1986, Mary Warnock provides a summary of the questions and moral dilemmas faced by the committee that she presided over, the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilization and Embryology. Warnock provides an overview of the moral reasoning behind the protection or use of human embryos in research, followed by an overview of how some of these arguments played out in the committee. These include the establishment of the appearance of a primitive streak and the 14-day rule as a cutoff for embryo policy.