There’s a moment in the new documentary Fixed: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement that might make most people gasp: Bioethicist James Hughes argues that it’s immoral for parents to intentionally bring disabled children into the world just to enrich their family life. Instead of imposing disabilities on others, he insists, they should settle with getting a pet.

Hughes has written that the clip was shown out of context. But its inclusion helps the director, Regan Brashear, explore provocative questions about how far society should go with transformative enhancement technologies, such as bionics, implanted computer chips, brain-computer interfaces, genetic engineering, and pharmacology. Where it is perhaps most powerful is in its exploration of the line between normal and abnormal, especially when it comes to the ideology of transhumanism.

Transhumanists “view human nature as a work in progress” and hope that developments in science and technology will enable us to become people “with vastly greater capacities than present human beings have”.  Some of its adherents truly do believe parents are morally obliged “to have the healthiest children through all natural and artificial means available.” Brashear wants her audience to know about their controversial ideology of “procreative beneficence,” rather than remaining unaware of its existence and influence.

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