Despite the attacks of the God-botherers, who tried to sneak in a cut in the abortion limit under the wire of the embryology bill, Parliament saw sense on every count yesterday.

* The abortion limit remains at 24 weeks, despite attempts by right-wingers to cut it to 20 or even 12.

* Lesbian couples and single mothers need not now take the 'father's' view into account when seeking IVF.

* Embryos may be produced by implanting human DNA into animal eggs to produce hybrid embryos that can be used for stem cell research.

* And parents may choose a specific embryo to tissue-match a new baby to an existing child who has certain genetic disorders.

The whole thing was a triumph for reason and science over religion and knee-jerk emotion.

The move to cut the time limit on abortion had virtually no support in the UK outside religious pressure groups and the right-wing tabloid press. The population did not want a change, according to polls; the medical evidence was heavily against it since very few foetuses survive under 24 weeks (some 40 per cent die shortly after birth and the remainder are mostly very handicapped); the Health Minister Dawn Primarolo was in favour of keeping the limit at 24 weeks; and so were both heads of the major parties. Parliament was given a free vote so that Catholics and other religious minorities could vote according to conscience, but thankfully the move to cut the limit was defeated by around two to one.

In the UK, it should be noted, nearly 90 per cent of abortions take place within 12 weeks in any case - this, in spite of the fact that abortion on demand does not actually exist in the UK (which it does here in France). In the UK, a pregnant woman still has to prove that the birth would be detrimental to her physical or emotional health, or that the foetus would be handicapped, and obtain the consent of two doctors - in this regard the country lags far behind most other countries in Europe but luckily there are moves afoot to liberalise the legislation.

Furthermore, in the UK 68 per cent of abortions take place very early - inside nine weeks and only one per cent of abortions take place after 22 weeks. The 'problem' of the 'epidemic' of late-term abortion simply doesn't exist. It was not an issue that needed to be dealt with.

Many women do not know, incidentally, that around one in three women has an abortion during her lifetime, and that in the UK at least, as many abortions are carried out on women over the age of 50 as there are on girls under 16. We would do well remember in our steady middle age that it is not all irresponsible teenagers who end up in the club after a night on the tiles, but pre-menopausal and menopausal women who take their eye off the ball because we think we're past it.

The Bill's side-issues of 'Frankenstein siblings' and rabid lesbians jamming the IVF clinics to have fatherless babies were thankfully simply kicked into touch. What utter bollocks all this was. The British public, a libertarian lot, don't really give a stuff about who shags whom, as long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses, and if lesbians want to be parents, better good lesbians than bad heterosexuals - there are plenty of those about, after all.

The major portion of the embryology bill, however, is a real breakthrough for science, and in the absence of human eggs to experiment on should hopefully furnish our researchers with usable stem cells long into the future. The embryos will be destroyed after 14 days, just as with human embryos. The move brings the prospect of a cure for some terrible diseases much closer, including Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, spinal atrophy, Parkinson's and Huntingdon's Chorea (which killed my great-aunt and is currently killing one of my cousins).

In tandem, scientists will pursue the possibililty of adult-generated stem cells. Although the substantial reverse-engineering required for this currently renders the results too unreliable to use, it does at least lack any controversy at all, unlike the hybrid embryos, the prospect of which seems to make some people very queasy.

Really, she should be given a medal.

Hirsi Ali, born a Somali Muslim, has suffered death threats since 2003 when she and her colleague Theo Van Gogh made Submission, a film that revealed the extend of violence against women within Islam.

Van Gogh was murdered in 2004 in Amsterdam (while he was cycling to work) and there are many extremists who would like to see Ali follow him. Van Gogh's murderer even left a declaration to that effect pinned to his victim's chest with a knife.

Ali has after all, commited the ultimate sin. She is an apostate - one who has lost her faith - which is punishable in Islam by death and nothing less.

Ali, who was forcibly circumcised as a child, escaped a forced marriage in Somalia for a freer life in Holland and eventually became a member of the Dutch parliament. But she was shamefully betrayed by her adopted country when she drew attention to the subjugation of Muslim women taking place in the Muslim ghettos of their own country. Not one to shy away from a difficult issue, she was outspoken and critical of liberal multi-culturalist attitudes that permitted the virtual enslavement of women and practices such as female genital mutilation within the heart of the European Union itself.

Now Franco Frattini, the European commissioner for justice and home affairs, has told the UK's Guardian newspaper that "Hirsi Ali and any other persons facing threats to their lives because of their opinions or writings, would be guaranteed protection wherever they went in Europe and that the host country would bear the expense".

Although no new laws were required to set up this agreement it's an important step and sends an important message to extremists - that the West values freedom of speech - including the freedom to offend.

We should be proud of Ali and women like her, who speak out on behalf of downtrodden women everywhere and face the prospect of death for simply daring to think differently. And perhaps finally we can be proud of the European Parliament.

Ali's books: Infidel, and The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam are available from the Second Cherry bookshops at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

I had my doubts about Bhutto - who didn't? She was probably corrupt, probably on the take. But she was a liberal, with pro-western and democratic values, and she was a woman with whom one could do business. She was the first female to become prime minister of an Islamic state, and I do believe at heart that she wanted the best for her people.

She didn't deserve to die like this, and make no mistake, the people who killed her would willingly kill all of us - all women who dare to uncover their heads, to speak in public, to have ideas of our own. They want nothing less than a theocracy in Pakistan, which would place women firmly under the boot heel of men.

Bhutto returned to her country knowing full well the risk she was taking. Her father was executed by the state. She herself spent years in prison - many of them in solitary confinement. The very day she got back saw the deaths of around 140 people - and she narrowly escaped injury herself - when her cavalcade was suicide bombed. To come back showed enormous courage but she believed Pakistan needed her - and she was right, she was her country's best hope.

Heaven help them now.