Editor, Gazette-Journal:

In his letter (“Thank Joe Biden! Really?,” Sept. 29 Readers Write), Bill Wallace decries the lack of “responsibility to not get pregnant in the first place,” apparently assuming women make a habit of getting pregnant by themselves, or that any woman who wants an abortion is guilty of wanton behavior.

Men can only have a theoretical concept of pregnancy, so they believe only women are responsible for it. This is the usual perspective of someone who has never had to face spending the rest of their lives caring for a child they could not afford and had never planned for. Accidents happen. Often women find they are pregnant because birth control failed. Flu can reduce the strength of birth control pills. IUDs can fail.

There are many reasons for abortion: An abusive husband, abandonment by the father, the woman too young and immature to adequately care for a child, abnormality of the unborn child, rape or incest, risk to the woman’s health, inability to a...