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Top-level advisers have urged the Government to let "surplus" embryos left over from fertility treatment be used for research.
The previous Government sat on the explosive advice for more than a year, and one source said the outgoing health minister had thrown his successor, Tony Ryall, "a grenade".
Some religious groups and others who consider human life starts when a sperm fertilises an egg will be alarmed by the recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology, made in June last year and obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act.
"We are totally opposed to that," Right to Life spokesman Ken Orr said last night. He planned to write to Mr Ryall before Christmas, urging him to reject the committee's advice.
More embryos than needed are created during in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Currently, spare, viable embryos can only be donated to other couples for implantation. After 10 years of frozen storage they must be disposed of - in effect by thawing.
The committee received 345 written submissions and nine oral ones during its investigation of human reproductive research.
As well, about 160 people attended public consultation meetings.
More than half the submissions said life started at conception.
And many opposed any embryo research, saying it was like harming or killing a person.
But the committee said many submissions supported research on surplus viable embryos if the parents gave informed consent and the research was potentially beneficial to human health.
Some of these people considered embryos had a lesser moral status than born humans.
Fertility clinics say that IVF parents can find it difficult to donate surplus embryos to another couple because it can lead to a full sibling being born in someone else's family.
The committee chairwoman, Professor Sylvia Rumball, told the Herald that IVF parents, faced with the prospect of their surplus embryos being destroyed, strongly supported being able to donate them for research.
This option is permitted in 22 developed countries, including Australia and the United Kingdom.
The research is mainly to improve IVF and reduce infertility, but experiments with embryonic stem cells are hoped to lead to treatments for conditions, ranging from neurological diseases to growth of organs for transplants.
Mr Ryall said he would look at the matter early next year.
"This is a decision that requires a considerable amount of thought and advice," he said.
Papers supplied by the Health Ministry indicate the former minister, David Cunliffe, at first supported the recommendation, but by March had changed his mind.
Ministry officials told Mr Cunliffe's predecessor, Pete Hodgson, that whatever was recommended would be controversial and would displease many people.
