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I continue to be a strong believer in the life-saving importance of early detection, and I encourage everyone to be proactive about their preventive screenings.

An estimated 2 million American women will be diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer this decade and screening could prevent up to 30% of these deaths for women over 40.

Trying to block women from getting access to contraception or defunding Planned Parenthood is completely nonsensical from a policy standpoint.

I think that it is our intention to deny cancer any control over us.

We've also seen another future we could choose. First of all, we'd have the right to choose. It's an America in which no one can charge us more than men for the exact same health insurance; in which no one can deny us affordable access to the cancer screenings that could save our lives; in which we decide when to start our families.

Restricting access to such a basic health care service, which 99% of sexually experienced American women have used and 62% of American women are using right now, is out of touch with public sentiment.

Because we spoke so loudly, opponents of reproductive health access demonized and smeared me and others on the public airwaves. These smears are obvious attempts to distract from meaningful policy discussions and to silence women's voices regarding their own health care.

CEOs and employers at for-profit corporations should not be able to prevent women from access to health care simply because of their own personal religious objections.

Anywhere from 40% to 60% of people, when they're given a requisition by a doctor to go get tested, don't, because they're scared of needles or the locations are inconvenient or the cost is too high. And if you're not even getting tested, how is it possible that we're going to move toward an era of preventive medicine?

Breast cancer alone kills some 458,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. It has got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing and lifesaving preventive treatment, whatever their means and background, wherever they live.