Healthy moms mean healthy families. When my Republican colleagues held a hearing about birth control and refused to include a single woman on the first panel as a witness, I asked, "Where are the women?"

I write about one of my bills that says pharmacists cannot be doctors. They cannot determine what they will or will not sell, and you find that many pharmacists will not sell birth control. The movement has gone not just against the access of reproductive rights to abortion; the movement has gone to birth control. They're going after birth control.

I believe very strongly in paid sick leave.

Usually women are the lynchpins of the family. They carry the brunt of the work at home and of being mothers and of taking care of the children. Not always. I have a wonderful husband, who is a great father and has helped tremendously at home. And I think that men are getting in touch and I think that the role that they have is so important, to be a good father and have a good career and be a good husband. But I think that as more and more women go into the workforce, you have to have more help at home and it becomes more of a sharing of responsibilities.

More women are working because they have to, that's what it takes to put the food on the table and pay the rent. And yet we have not changed our policies to support the family. The right wing goes to the floor, and they did when they were in power, and talk about family values. Well, where are they? Family values is support for child care. Family values is equal pay for equal work so that women are paid appropriately.

We cannot ensure that women will be free of discrimination in the workplace and everywhere as long as women are not universally defended under our Constitution. As it stands now, the equal rights of women are subject to interpretation of law. That is a risk our mothers, sisters and daughters cannot afford.

I asked, "What do you think the most important advancement was for women in recent years?" And the majority, the item that polled the most, was Hillary Clinton's run for President. Can you believe that? Women saw that as a breakthrough in something very, very important. She didn't win. And I think another thing that her race did was it showed sexism in our society.