BETWEEN AUTONOMY AND EUGENICS: THE ETHICAL AND LEGAL CHALLENGES OF DISABILITY THROUGH BIOHACKING

Abstract

This article examines the ethical and legal challenges arising from biohacking practices aimed at human enhancement, understood as a contemporary expression of positive eugenics. The analysis focuses on the tension between bodily self-determination, personality rights, and the normative limits of the Brazilian legal system, particularly in light of the possibility of the voluntary production of long-term impairments, as defined by the Brazilian Statute of Persons with Disabilities. The objective is to assess the extent to which private autonomy may legitimize technoscientific interventions in the human body, as well as to identify the legal parameters applicable to such practices in light of the Statute of Persons with Disabilities, the Civil Code, and relevant health, ethical, and criminal regulatory frameworks. The study adopts a qualitative methodology, with a theoretical-dogmatic and interdisciplinary approach, based on normative, doctrinal, and bioethical analysis. The results indicate the existence of an indeterminate normative zone resulting from the absence of specific regulation, which strains the legal protection of bodily integrity and may generate significant distributive and social impacts. The article concludes by emphasizing the need to develop legal criteria capable of reconciling the exercise of individual autonomy with the promotion of human dignity and bodily diversity.