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Even worse, there are accredited members of the scientific community who make metaphysical claims -- sacrificial love is simply a product of evolution (except of course when it's convenient to claim it's not), sexual misbehavior is not a matter of choice, children in the womb are not alive, animals have rights etc.

There are a few who argue along most of these lines, but I've never heard anyone, scientist, D*m*cr*t, whatever, argue for the bolded position. Cites please.

children in the womb are not alive, . . . There are a few who argue along most of these lines, but I've never heard anyone, scientist, D*m*cr*t, whatever, argue for the bolded position. Cites please.

Really. it was a pretty common claim throught the '90s. Remember the phrase "potential life"?

Anyway here:

It seems obvious that we need a clear boundary to confer personhood on a human being and grant it a right to life. Otherwise, we approach a slippery slope that ends in the disposal of inconvenient people or in grotesque deliberations on the value of individual lives. But the endless abortion debate shows how hard it is to locate the boundary. Anti-abortionists draw the line at conception, but that implies we should shed tears every time an invisible conceptus fails to implant in the uterus --"

Steven Pinker is now the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard