Our party is a diverse one, as is my home state of Illinois.

Our timing is right... The election results are still fresh in the minds of my Republican colleagues and they don't want to go through this again.

Hard to imagine 40 years ago people could be convicted of a crime, fined, sent to prison for using the most common forms of birth control.

I have thought about this issue of abortion time and again. It is not an easy issue for most people. I came to believe over the years that a woman should be able to make this agonizing decision with her doctor and her family and her conscience, and that we should be very careful that we don't make that decision a crime except in the most extreme circumstances.

There is also the issue of personal privacy when it comes the executive power. Throughout our nation's history, whether it was habeas corpus during the Civil War, Alien and Sedition Acts in World War I, or Japanese internment camps in World War II, presidents have gone too far.

We see it in attempts on Capitol Hill to impose gag rules on rules on doctors on what they can say to their patients about family planning. And we certainly see it now with an effort by the government to tap our phones; invade our medical records, credit information, library records and the most sensitive personal information in the name of national security.

We have 11 million people in this country that need a pathway to citizenship.