One of the most chilling terms ever coined is surely "career woman".

Derogatory and belittling, it might have been invented solely to drive a wedge between the image of sweet, home-loving females, devoted to making their husbands and children happy, and those harridans in power suits who came home late and pour out all their maternal love on a cat or dog, or a husband who was secretly scared of his high-flying spouse and had her dinner ready as she walked in the door.

Career women, I was brought up to believe, were a breed apart: cold-hearted, selfish and indomitable. They might be admirable, but morally they were a bit suspect, and in terms of femininity, they were a disgrace to their sex. Funny, though, how a male surgeon or professor or physicist was never described as a career man.

Though we live in a so-called age of equality, I suspect the image of serious working women will take a further hammering this week. Figures from the Department of Health show the abortion rate among women in their early thirties has risen by 10% in the past two years, even as it's steeply declining among the under-18s. Almost two-thirds of women who had abortions last year, aged between 20 and 34, were in relationships but decided to have a termination because they felt they could not afford a child in the current financial climate, or thought it would threaten their career. Many have said they hope to start a family, but just not now.

Abortion is a highly sensitive subject, and I understand those who think it unjustifiable except in the most critical circumstances. I also doubt I'll be alone in feeling astonished at columnist Caitlin Moran's reflection on her abortion that, "I'm not being flippant when I say it took me longer to decide what worktops to have in the kitchen." Moran was a young mother-of-two at the time, and many will think her callous: after all she had a stable home, and enough money. Isn't abortion a last-ditch measure, acceptable only when one faces an unthinkable, unsustainable pregnancy, rather than a way of getting rid of a bothersome intrusion on one's five-year plan?

It's far too easy, though, to be judgmental. Merely having a job and a roof over one's head is not a sufficient condition for having a baby. Of course, as every parent will tell you, if couples waited until they felt financially secure the human race would soon be extinct. The same goes for the impact of a pregnancy on a career – like having flu, taking maternity leave is never convenient. But risky though it might prove, there is also a place for making a hard-headed and pragmatic decision which will one day pay dividends. After all, look how we sneer at those with no income who fecklessly have lots of children, and rely on the state to provide for them.

For some, though, I fear these statistics will merely confirm that women who are dedicated to their jobs have hearts of stone. Well, maybe some of them do. In a country where abortion is legal, however, and where discrimination against women in the workplace persists, a termination is not an atrocity. If these women think that by entrenching their career they will have a better home to offer a child some years later, is that a bad choice? Won't a wanted baby stand a better chance, as will its parents' relationship, than one that has come at the wrong time?

Until relatively recently, men have been able to put their careers first and still maintain a family. Many were virtually absentee fathers, more often to be found in the office or pub than pushing a pram, yet no opprobrium was hurled at them. It seems to me that the more women who make their way up the professional ladder, the better it will be for the next generation of would-be mothers. Perhaps one day, thanks to those who have temporarily – or permanently – put work ahead of motherhood, there will eventually be a family-friendly working culture in this country. Should that time ever come, women will never again have to face the grimmest of choices, the dreadful either-or between career and child.