i’ve been debating this moral dilemma in my mind for a few days now. it all started with a friend (a girl) who thought she might be pregnant. i won’t go into the details at all, but she already had it in her mind that she was going to have an abortion if it turned out to be true. it was her next comment that caught me off-guard. she mentioned that she was not going to tell her boyfriend at all.

now, i firmly believe that a woman has the right to make that choice if she so desires. but what i am having trouble with is her immediate assumption that he *should* not know the outcome. i suppose there is the side that says that he deserves to know, or at least be “in the loop” concerning something that he had a direct part in. it’s not his choice to make whether or not she has an abortion, but shouldn’t it at least be a courtesy to let him know not only that he got her pregnant, but that she chose to end it?

but then there is the side that says that it’s her body to make that choice, so it should be her right to tell whoever she wants to tell. the boyfriend doesn’t *need* to know, and since it isn’t technically his decision to have the abortion then he doesn’t need to know if it happened or not. on the other hand, if he knows before she has it done, he may try to talk her out of it, but i don’t think she was worried about that at all. she’d already made up her mind it was going to happen if the test came back positive. i guess what i’ve been struggling with is whether or not it’s completely fair to him to exclude him from such a big decision when he played a part in creating the situation they are both in. i’m just not sure i agree with her position, but it turns out she wasn’t pregnant after all, so it’s all a moot point anyway. still, doesn’t the man have a right to know in this situation?