When these issues are raised, people tend to have two counter-productive reactions. The first is abject defeatism. The second anger at the messenger and accusations that they're a part of the problem. Or, in other words, talking about politicizing science is politicizing science. Both have justifiable viewpoints at their core but are harmful in the long-term nonetheless.
The first is harmful and wrong for a straightforward reason; the range of outcomes that emerge from defeatism are universally bad. The range of outcomes that arise from a worldview that everything can be fixed stem from the bad to the okay to the somewhat good. The range of results that are possible through action outweigh those of inaction. So what's the point in giving up?
The second bit is the science is being used in such and such ways bit. This reminds me of the debates I've had with people who have a hardline view of individual freedoms and clauses in the constitution. I often like to tell them that the constitution is a guiding document, not a suicide pact.
Ideally, we should live by the idealized impartiality and objectivity that Scientists should have while interacting with the world. The idea that Scientists should be in the ivory tower, away from the grime of humanity and refraining from commenting on matters that connect and are of import with the body politic. People will mention gender, sexuality, climate change, abortion etc as these pivotal points where science can't give the answers and therefore science must ixnay and look away.
But I would like to raise the idea of science Carl Sagan had. Science as a candle in the dark. Sagan would talk at length about the development of science in ancient societies, and how unconnected these developments were from the lives of the population. Heron of Alexandria created a steam engine in the ancient world, but he never applied to alleviate the burdens of humans. It was used as a curiosity for the powerful. To quote his immortal words, "The permanence of the stars was questioned; the justice of slavery was not."
Why shouldn't we use our insight into the human condition and the broader perspective science offers us to inform our moral choices? Why should scientists bind themselves into an idealized suicide pact when they're under assault? Why can't scientists bring down the fire from Olympus and share it with the populace?
Our problem stems from the fires of ignorance and the idea that someone's ignorance is equal to someone else's research or knowledge. Why can't scientists use the scientific method to investigate it and share their perspective with the world?
Science tends to give people something akin to the overseer effect; why shouldn't that be shared with the world, if it moves us just a bit in the right direction?
Is the potential for misuse great? Yes, but what's the alternative? Stagnation? An absence of the humanizing presence of science in the great moral debates? Why should that be the realm of charlatans and the working of mitochondria that of science? Why can't scientists connect the two and work to illuminate the darkness?