Bio-ethics and Scienitific Illiteracy

I was at a science fiction convention not long ago, talking on a panel whose topic was "bio-ethics". The phrase "bio-ethics" as far as I can tell, means the study of how not to apply normal ethical norms to novel medical and biotechnological techniques.

As inevitably happens, some yammerhead began denouncing the religious obscurantism for being "against science" -- apparently on the grounds that abortion is scientific, whereas a descent respect for human life in the womb is unscientific, mere