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To explore how cultural beliefs are reflected in different popular views of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for human leukocyte antigen match (popularly known as "savior siblings"), we compare the reception and interpretations, in Germany and Israel, of the novel/film My Sister's Keeper. Qualitative analysis of reviews, commentaries and posts is used to classify and compare normative assessments of PGD for HLA and how they reproduce, negotiate or oppose the national policy and its underlying cultural and ethical premises. Four major themes emanated from the comparison: loss of self-determination and autonomy; loss of dignity through instrumentalization; eugenics and euthanasia; and saving life. In both countries, most commentaries represented a dominant position, with a few negotiated positions. We also highlight the decoding of a relatively less explored bioethical aspect of My Sister's Keeper's narrative, namely the meaning of euthanasia. We conclude by discussing how the findings relate to attempts of providing cultural explanations for the regulation of HLA-PGD.

This paper is based on linked qualitative studies of the donation of human embryos to stem cell research carried out in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and China. All three studies used semi-structured interview protocols to allow an in-depth examination of donors' and non-donors' rationales for their donation decisions, with the aim of gaining information on contextual and other factors that play a role in donor decisions and identifying how these relate to factors that are more usually included in evaluations made by theoretical ethics. Our findings have implications for one factor that has previously been suggested as being of ethical concern: the role of gratitude. Our empirical work shows no evidence that interpersonal gratitude is an important factor, but it does support the existence of a solidarity-based desire to "give something back" to medical research. Thus, we use empirical data to expand and refine the conceptual basis of bioethically theorizing the IVF-stem cell interface.

Ethical questions in relation to human embryos in vitro are today raised by reproductive medicine, preimplantation genetic diagnosis and stem cell research. Various discourses--biological, political and medical--describe the embryo from different perspectives. Empirical investigations of the perceptions and concerns of patients in IVF treatments provide important insights. Referring to a variety of discourses and perspectives, the paper develops an ethical analysis of the responsibility for embryos in vitro, with a special emphasis on the relationships involved. In the context of current discussions about the moral status of the embryo, the paper differentiates between four different meanings of "potentiality" of the embryo: (a) external potentiality, (b) the tendency towards a developmental pathway, (c) the transitive determination by a program, (d) preformation. For different reasons, (a), (c) and (d) are rejected. On the basis of potentiality in the sense of (b), the embryo can be described as a developmental being that gives its developmental potential continuously to the next stage ("self-transcendence") and is on the way of becoming a human. This is a reason for defending ethical responsibility for human embryos as the moral recognition of a growing dignity that becomes more intense with increasing proximity to birth.