The shadow Home Secretary, Andrew Lansley, told MP’s that he aims to make it easier for women to have earlier abortions and to lower the time limit for late terminations.

The government denoted it would not contest the move, indicating that it will almost certainly be passed.

Of course, Pro-life protesters will be up-in-arms if the bill is passed and Pro-life MP’s are already making counter moves to cut the time limit for late abortions from 24 weeks to 22 or less.

Abortion always will be an incredibly controversial issue. Pro-life protesters feel passionately for their cause and I wouldn’t for one minute wish to undermine their beliefs. But I am certainly pro-choice.

This latest move will offer more choice to pregnant women and, in a country where the rates of teenage pregnancy and the number of single parents are amongst the highest in Europe and there is a massive shortage of foster parents, this is surely no bad thing.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that teenagers or single mothers make bad parents, I am simply behind a woman’s right to choose the right time for her. It seems that some women who unexpectedly find themselves pregnant see, or indeed have, little choice other than to keep the child.

To some extent this will always be the case. Sometimes it is too late to have an abortion and I fully agree that there should be a humane time limit on terminations.

But if accidents happen, as they can often do, the government should do all it can to ensure that abortion, and of course adoption, offer women as much choice as is medically, humanely and practically possible.

Today’s news reported that police are searching the underground dungeon where Josef Fritzel kept his daughter captive for 24 years, for buried bodies.

Police will break down the walls in the cellar to get to the hidden rooms as well as investigating the electrics and plumbing to ascertain whether Fritzel could have constructed the dungeon alone.

This is a truly horrific crime and it is impossible to imagine the ordeal suffered by Elisabeth Fritzel and the seven children that she mothered as a result of her father’s sexual abuse.

It makes me wonder how Fritzel was able to hide such an awful crime for so long. He claimed that his daughter had ran away to join a religious sect and when he moved three of the father and daughter’s children in with him and his wife, he claimed that Elisabeth had abandoned them on the doorstep.

Surely I’m not the only one who find’s these circumstances somewhat suspicious?

So why, one wonders didn’t the police, or anyone else for that matter, hear alarm bells ringing.

It is very difficult to believe that no-one living in the small community of Amstetten witnessed anything that raised suspicion. For 24 years this man was living a double life. For 24 years he held his daughter captive in a dungeon underneath his own home. Over 24 years he raped her repeatedly and fathered seven of her children. I might be cynical but it seems highly likely that over those 24 years numerous people from the community may have seen things that didn’t quite add up. They just chose to ignore their suspicions.

Now I’m not pointing the finger. It may well be the case that Fritzel was so cunning that he did manage to conceal the crime, even from his wife whom he lived with.

But in that case why weren’t the police doing more to investigate the disappearance of his daughter? Why did they simply accept his word that she had joined a religious cult? After all, his word could not necessarily be trusted. This is a man who has a history of sex crimes including convictions for rape and attempted rape, as well as being investigated for an unrelated murder.

In an article on BrandRepublic the Austrian Chancellor, Alfred Gusenbauer is quoted as saying: “It’s not Austria that is the perpetrator. This is an unfathomable case, but an isolated one.”

But this is not strictly true. The shocking revelations lead us to draw comparison with the case of Natasha Kampush who escaped two years ago from a basement in a house in Vienna where she had been held for over eight years.

Recently America’s first homosexual Bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, announced his forthcoming civil partnership to his boyfriend of 20 years and gushingly said:

“I always wanted to be a June bride.”

The proud statement came after he had delivered an hour-long lecture on the relationship between religion and public discourse, and why religious fervour over homosexuality plays such a large and negative role in the securing of full civil rights for gay people.

It seems that his lecture didn’t really hit home as, thanks to scores of conservative bloggers, within hours Bishop Robinson’s eight little words had made it all around the world.

It really does beg the question – what on earth is the big deal?

The problem seemed to be his use of the word ‘bride’. By using the term he feminised himself, which some obviously found a little too hard to handle. It seems that he caused offence by relegating a ‘privileged’ man to the status of a woman.

There was actual outrage in some quarters, most particularly the more conservative areas of Middle America. But if America has accepted a gay Bishop, to surprisingly little objection, why is America, and the world at large, so bemused when the man in question expresses his homosexuality?

So, the apparent liberalising step in religion is in fact not very liberalising. It seems that Bishop Robinson’s critics are saying “we’ll let you be gay…but we’re just not so comfortable with you acting gay”.

In an article in the Sunday Times, Bishop Robinson has said of his statement:

“It was a stupid thing to say. I should have known better.”

I would like to suggest that it is his critics that should have known better. It is because of such bigoted reactions that so many teenage boys and girls sit in their bedrooms day after day, too frightened to speak out, too frightened to express themselves…too frightened to be gay.

So I was flicking through this week’s Sunday Times when I unwittingly stumbled upon a feature that shook me to my feminist my core.

Here was I under the impression that the twenty first century woman has it all. Gone are the days of marrying young, popping out a few sprogs by the time we’re 25 and spending the rest of our lives home-making. The world is our oyster – we have more opportunities than ever before and society’s sensibilities no longer inflict guilt upon a 30 something, high-flying business woman with no intention of marrying or becoming a mother for a good 10 years.

How wrong I was. The article in the Sunday Times Style supplement, Settle for Less in Love, asks women embarking upon their 30′s to stop messing around looking for Mr Right and instead find Mr Marry Me Quickly And Give Me Children.

The writer pre-empted responses such as this from scores of single 30 something’s telling her that she has no idea what she’s talking about. In response she has already written such women off as of course being petrified about not having bagged themselves a bloke yet and simply in denial or lying.

Well I’m actually 23 and this article has singlehandedly made me doubt my own sex. What did feminists fight for in the bra burning days of the 60′s if it wasn’t to give the modern women the freedoms and capabilities they need not to rely on men? How can we now be reverting by 50 years to a time when a life without a man was an uncharacterised semi-existence? Apparently the woman of the naughties NEEDS a man, and a substandard one at that.

Now I’m no man-hater. In fact I like men. And I have absolutely no quarm with women who find Mr Right, settle-down early and live a happy life as a wife and mother. Actually, I might even be a little jealous of those woman who stumble upon someone who’s perfect for them without the catalogue of bad relationships and tedious dates that many of us leave behind.

My problem is with the suggestion that after a certain age women should just settle for any old man, as long as he’s fertile of course. I mean, what a ridiculous notion! How can it be a valid suggesstion that, for the sake of settling down and having kids quick women must resolve themselves to a most likely unhappy marriage with a bloke that they possibly don’t even love.

I can guarantee that you won’t find a similar feature between the covers of FHM or Men’s Health. Men really can have it all. Nowadays it barely raises an eyebrow to hear of a man in his 50′s who hasn’t yet settled. Why on earth has this double standard reared its ugly head again?

Let us dispel this crazy notion. All you single women stand proud and shout loud. You deserve Mr Right and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!