Our puzzle, then, is to understand why the idea of human dignity—which tends to lie in the background of (secularized) human rights instruments in general—is now being thrust into the foreground of instruments dealing specifically with biomedicine. Is this just a coincidence? Is it simply an opportunistic rhetorical flourish to which we should pay no particular attention? Or does it signify substantive concerns about the impact of new biomedical techniques and technologies—particularly about the impact of the new genetics? If the latter, then is the function of human dignity to reinforce or complement the claims to fundamental freedoms historically advanced in the name of human rights? Or does respect for human dignity have its own distinctive for script for the twenty-first century, limiting, qualifying, and possibly competing with our twentieth-century understanding of respect for human rights? If there is a tension between human rights and human dignity, how is it be resolved? These are the kinds of questions to which we need answers if we are to determine whether there is a defensible conception of human dignity; and, if so, what respect for human dignity implies.