The term may have been coined by transhumanistMax 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 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]
^Bradshaw, H. G.; Ter Meulen, R. (2010). "A Transhumanist Fault Line Around Disability: Morphological Freedom and the Obligation to Enhance". Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. 35 (6): 670–684. doi:10.1093/jmp/jhq048. PMID21076073.
