Whatever "reasonable middle ground" you find, you'd have to make logically sound ethical arguments. This is what these people do for a living, and they are very well trained in those matters.
As programmers and engineers we are also trained in logic, use it every day. But that typically pales in comparison of what philosophers do. They deal with much richer logical systems and can precisely apply them to statements and arguments.
When applied to ethics, they typically end up with much more radical conclusions that we are dealing with here. In fact the resulting initiatives are already softened compromises and a "reasonable middle ground" before it even clashes with policy making.
Babies and children today are routinely subjected to avoidable adverse stimuli, such as circumcision and corporal punishment. That a typical parent can do this at will for no good reason, but a scientist wanting to do something similar to advance human knowledge must seek approval from an ethics board (which they would not get) is ridiculous.
Now the use of the results of that research...