In January, this year, Barack Obama intervened on a hugely emotive issue. The new president repealed the "global gag rule", reinstated by George Bush, that had banned US funding for family planning groups who offered advice on abortion worldwide. It was a move that had huge symbolic power, and will provide help to millions of women, particularly in countries where unsafe illegal abortions are rife.

Dana Hovig, chief executive of Marie Stopes International, the charity that provides reproductive health care around the world, describes the effect of eight years of the rule. "There were countless women who died because of the policies of the Bush administration," he says. "The irony is that keeping contraceptives away caused more abortions - exactly what they didn't want. And caused more women to die."

Last month, the family and doctors of a nine-year-old girl, who was raped by her stepfather in Brazil, were excommunicated by the Catholic church after she was given an abortion. Then the Pope claimed the use of condoms could increase the spread of HIV/Aids. Last week, news that the morning-after pill was being sold by one internet chemist, and that adverts for abortion could be shown on television following a review of advertising codes, drew criticism from the Daily Mail, among others, including the church and anti-abortion groups. "People like this should be able to share their points of view," says Hovig, "but the Daily Mail shouldn't decide for women. The Pope - a man who has never had sex - shouldn't and Marie Stopes shouldn't. We should all provide information and facts and trust women to make their own decisions."

What will be the effect of advertising abortion services on television? It's not as if women, even teenage girls, don't know that abortion exists. "The point is not to increase abortions - we want to increase the number of women who are using family planning and taking control of their lives in that way - but there is still a stigma, and if it can go on television then it will help de-stigmatise it."

Abortions, in particular surgical terminations, carry risks but Hovig points out that the clinics run by Marie Stopes around the world are among the safest. Hovig will not comment on the case of Alesha Thomas, a 15-year-old girl from Huddersfield, who died after going to a clinic in Leeds run by Marie Stopes, except to say, "We find it incredibly sad". A coroner criticised the care she received at the clinic, and Marie Stopes are considering launching a challenge to the report. Anti-abortion campaigners have used this story as "evidence" that all abortions are unsafe.

What all these recent headlines illustrate is that we are still no closer to talking about birth control and women's rights without a dose of hysteria. Does Hovig think we will ever get to the point where we can talk about contraception and terminations more openly? "I think so," he says. "I believe in progress. I believe dogma will eventually die."

People often assume that Hovig, 46, is a woman, partly because of his first name - he jokes that he was teased mercilessly at school in Oregon in the US, where he grew up, for having a "girl's name" - but mainly because the work that Marie Stopes does is almost entirely for women. Do people think it strange that the head of this organisation is a man? "Men are a big part of the problem," he says, "so we should at least try to be part of the solution."

Doesn't it make him hopping mad every time the Pope says condoms spread HIV, or the church damns a child who has been raped for having a termination? "I think that the Catholic hierarchy are dinosaurs on the issue of women's rights, condoms and abortion. The previous Pope was named Time's man of the year seven or eight years ago; policies that are anti-condom and anti-contraception result in the death of women. How could someone in that position become man of the year? If you believe in progress and science, that voice will become increasingly irrelevant."

The signs, though, are not encouraging, even in this country where anti-abortion groups have relatively little influence. Last year, MPs voted on whether to reduce the upper limit at which abortions can be carried out from 24 to 20 weeks. Even though all amendments were rejected, every member of the Conservative front bench, with the exception of George Osborne, voted for lowering the limit, which doesn't bode well for women's rights if the Tories win the next election. "It would be a massive setback for the few thousand women - mostly young women - [who have late terminations]," says Hovig. "Women should be given the facts and make a choice for themselves. Very few abortions [1.45%] are performed later than 20 weeks. We think it's a red herring anyway. The debate should be about increasing access for earlier abortions, decreasing stigma about abortion, and getting rid of doctors' signatures, which is a barrier [two doctors still need to agree to an abortion request]. If you do all that, abortions might not decrease, but they will move up to safer gestation periods."

Hovig points out that while the Department for International Development is good at pushing governments in Africa and Asia to invest more in education, family planning and abortion services, the government is far less proactive here. The teenage pregnancy rate recently went up for the first time in six years, and Britain has the highest rate in Europe.

Hovig believes that birth control shouldn't be so medicalised, that morning-after pills should be as easy to come by as painkillers. He says the most frustrating aspect of his job is that family planning is so easy, yet so little is invested in it. "I think [politicians] are too removed from the day-to-day of women's lives," he says. "It's frustrating because there is so much that can be done. We have the solutions."