Betty Ford and I were colleagues for years, working together for women's rights in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in the country.

In my opinion, the battles over birth control and Planned Parenthood are primarily neither political nor religious. This is an issue of equality for women. This is an issue of women's rights: Planned Parenthood is the most important private provider of reproductive health care for women in the United States.

During the 19th-century struggle for women's rights in America, many saw a competition between rights for black people and those for women.

If supporters of equality for women want to vote for the best candidate, they must look to a person regardless of gender and must disregard the gender of political opponents.

Now look: I love Twitter. But let's not kid ourselves; when it comes to a free and open Internet, Twitter is a part of the problem. The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate.

We have a choice in Silicon Valley. We can either continue to exist as an island to ourselves, focused on wealth creation and innovation... or we can understand that we are in the middle of a software revolution and answer the nation's call to provide economic opportunity and technology to places left behind.

Women with minimal access to resources and no access to child care have limited choices that too often mean low-wage and part-time labor. In rural communities in the developing world, when women farmers have unequal access to fertilizers or training, their farm productivity lags behind men.

I started writing in fourth grade and never stopped. I faked my way through high school and nearly was flushed from college - I still can't pay attention - and then had a series of day jobs. But always, continuously, I have written.