This special issue of Human Rights in Bioethics contains four inspiring articles that raise important issues in the ongoing debate on human rights in bioethics. For example, Baranzke takes a close look at the history of the concept of the sanctity of life and concludes that it should not be seen as a 'vague property of physical life', but rather viewed as a particular 'mode of action '. Cochrane examines some important recent attempts to apply insights from bioethics to the theory and practice of human rights; Ram-Tiktin suggests seeing the right to health care as a right to basic human functional capacity within a framework of distributive justice in health care; and finally, Schroeder forcefully demonstrates that a human rights approach should not rely on human dignity as its foundation. It is safe to say that these and related issues are on the threshold of current research and will certainly deepen and strengthen the discussion. In the following chapters, the introduction first provides a brief overview of some important issues in the philosophy of human rights. The second part addresses the key question of why human rights are important to the discourses of the
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bioethics. The third part briefly discusses two recent approaches to the concept of human rights and dignity, i.e. Arras and Fenton's institutional approach to human rights and Beyleveld and Brownsword's agency-based approach to dignity. The fourth part highlights some important points of the articles, indicating their relevance for human rights in bioethics. The introduction concludes with some concluding remarks.