When government control or regulation of any area of activity is under consideration, the first task is to determine public policy for the area. A decision must be taken about what is to happen: should the activity be left untouched, or should the government intervene to regulate? If intervention is chosen, the aim of regulation must be identified. If the policy end to be achieved is not clearly formulated, the chance of effective regulation will be small. In a democracy the decision about intervention and the policy to be pursued must be determined through the democratic process, ultimately by the legislature, acting with advice from various sources. Once the policy is decided, then the means of implementing it have to be considered: should legislation or some other form of regulation be used, and if legislation is chosen, what form should it take? Underlying the question of what form of ‘direct’ regulation to use is the issue of ‘indirect’ control through allocation of public funds. The allocation of public resources is clearly very important, but is usually subject to much less public scrutiny and criticism than direct forms of regulation because of the inherent difficulties of comparing dissimilar claims for public support. The essays in this section discuss various aspects of the problem of formulating and implementing what I have called ‘direct’ policy in relation to embryo research.