Defeating death?

Transhumanism breaks with the wisdoms of acceptance: death is neither an indifferent nothingness, as for Epicurus, nor the horizon that would give life its worth, as for Heidegger, but the greatest of harms and a technical problem. Aging is recast as a curable disease. It is revolt carried to its conclusion: to refuse finitude as an injustice to be fought, not a fate to be tamed.

We will no longer tolerate the tyranny of aging and death.'A Letter to Mother Nature' (1999)

Bostrom, 'The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant' · de Grey, Ending Aging

Where bioconservatism sees in human nature a limit to be respected, transhumanism treats the body and mind we are given as a contingent starting point, shaped by blind evolution. Nothing sanctifies this inheritance: to forbid medicine, genetics or cognitive enhancement from extending our capacities in the name of "nature" would be a superstition. Enhancement is merely the deliberate continuation of what culture and technology have always done.

More, 'Transhumanism: Toward a Futurist Philosophy' · Bostrom, 'In Defense of Posthuman Dignity'

With biotechnologies applied to human beings, technological power is no longer exercised on objects but on its own author. Jonas opposes human cloning in the name of a "right to ignorance": he fears the clone would be trapped in the social expectation of reproducing a life already known, without assuming that genetic identity determines a destiny. He rejects the project of abolishing death or prolonging life indefinitely: mortality is the price of life and the condition of its renewal through birth.

The Imperative of Responsibility, ch. I · "Laßt uns einen Menschen klonieren", in Technik, Medizin und Ethik (1985) · "The Burden and Blessing of Mortality" (1992)