Part of a series on
Human enhancement
Advocacy Rationale Adaptionist "Beneficient" Emancipatory Compensatory Democratic "Directive" Libertarian "Metahumanistic" Posthumanistic "Prometheist" Preventative Transhumanistic Paradigm Biohappiness Cyborgs Eugenics Intelligence amplification Moral enhancement Prostheses
(De facto) germline interventions Selective Cloning Counseling Genetic Genomic Pre-conception Genetic enhancement Genetic engineering Epigenome editing PGD Embryo quality Oocyte selection Polygenic (risk) score (technical article) Prenatal testing Selective abortion Sex selection Sperm sorting "Nobelist sperm banks"
Somatic interventions Body hacking Somatic gene therapy for color blindness in sports doping Stem-cell therapy Embryonic cells Fetal tissue implant Chemical Stimulants Amphetamine Methamphetamine Ritalin Nootropics Modafinil Piracetam Xanthine derivatives Caffeine Neurological Brain implant Brain–computer interface Deep brain stimulation "Man-Computer Symbiosis" (1960) Neuralink Neurohacking
Opposition Appeal to nature Bioconservatism "Brave New World Argument" Chesterton Francis Fukuyama Our Posthuman Future (2002) Cloning prohibition Leon Kass Stem cell controversy "Designer baby" "Frankenstein's monster" He Jiankui genome editing incident Hwang affair Against life extension Undesirability of immortality Nikolas Kompridis Legal EU convention on Bioethics Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (vetoed) United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning In the UK 1990 act 2003 act 2008 act 2001 act C.S. Lewis The Abolition of Man (1943) That Hideous Strength (1945) "Playing God" Religious response to ARTs "Wisdom of repugnance"
Related ART Exowombs IVG Augmented learning Deep ecology Treating executive dysfunction Evolutionary humanism Longevity Anti-aging movement Life extension Rejuvenation Young blood transfusion Natalism Natura naturans Pontifical and Promethean man Collapse of the therapy-enhancement divide Promethean gap Technophobia Therapy-enhancement distinction

Morphological freedom refers to a proposed civil right of a person to either maintain or modify their own body, on their own terms, through informed, consensual recourse to, or refusal of, available therapeutic or enabling medical technology.^[1]

The term may have been coined by transhumanist Max More in his 1993 article, “Technological Self-Transformation: Expanding Personal Extropy”, where he defined it as "the ability to alter bodily form at will through technologies such as surgery, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, uploading". The term was later used by science debater and futurist Anders Sandberg as "an extension of one’s right to one’s body, not just self-ownership but also the right to modify oneself according to one’s desires."^[2]

The Massachusetts-headquartered charity, the Freedom of Form Foundation, was founded in 2018 to advocate and fund scientific research furthering progress on morphological freedom, the tools required to achieve it and its general acceptance in society at large.^{[3][non-primary source needed]}

According to technocritic Dale Carrico, the politics of morphological freedom imply a commitment to the value, standing, and social legibility of the widest possible variety of desired morphologies and lifestyles. More specifically, morphological freedom is an expression of liberal pluralism, secularism, progressive cosmopolitanism, and posthumanist multiculturalisms applied to the ongoing and upcoming transformation of the understanding of medical practice from one of conventional therapy to one of consensual self-determination, via genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification.^{[citation needed]}

According to authors Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen there is tension between religion and transhumanists, particularly the Abrahamic traditions, with regards to morphological freedom. While religion generally recognizes the need to heal people and improve their situation from a medical perspective they are generally hesitant to promote a wholesale modification of the body as they see it ultimately belonging to God.^[4]

• Carrico, Dale (2006). "The Politics of Morphological Freedom". Amor Munro blog. Retrieved 2007-01-28.
• Sandberg, Anders (2001). "Morphological Freedom -- Why We not just Want it, but Need it". Retrieved 2024-03-07.