The health ministry has asked IVF clinics not to start freezing the eggs of healthy women until parliament has debated the subject later on Thursday.

Last week the clinics announced they would extend their human egg-freezing services for all women over the age of 45 when it appeared health minister Edith Schippers had given the green light. Hundreds of women applied.
Schippers later said she had been misunderstood when she published her reaction to expert advice. She wrote that the advice provided a ‘good basis’ to allow egg-freezing.
A final decision, however, must wait for the parliamentary debate. The Christian Democrats and the ChristenUnie have ethical doubts and the fundamentalist Christian SGP is completely against the move.