But were you happily married? There are many situations where it makes excellent sense for a woman not to tell, but when you are happily married part of the deal is no secrets. And also letting your partner do stuff you might not want.
I can’t decide. My thoughts:
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If we are a married couple, then we’re in it together. I can’t order you to have an abortion. You can’t inform me that you’re having one regardless of my thoughts on the matter.
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Having this discussion after the getting knocked up part is not the way to go. If I’m not cool with you aborting things, I shouldn’t be putting anything inside you in the first place.
I do find it interesting that opinions on this are so much less varied than the opinion on whether to inform someone that you had an affair.
And, yes, she should discuss it with him. For reasons stated above, plus the fact that her current state has to do with him.
Plus I know a guy who almost committed suicide when his girlfriend didn’t tell him. And that was just his girlfriend.
I think this phrasing puts it best.
It’s her decision. But ethically, I think he should be informed, at least if it’s a surgical abortion. If for no other reason, as encouragement for him to use a more reliable method of birth control, i.e., vasectomy.
I think one problem here is peoples opinions often change. When they got married they both might have agreed to have no children but what if one of them changes their minds later on?
Kevin’s opinion on abortion is already a known factor. And respecting opinions is a nice-to-have, not an ethical imperative, when the decision to act is already made, as in this case.
I wouldn’t be married to someone who was anti-abortion, you’re right there. I love my wife, but if she suddenly turned anti-choice (or became a climate change denier, or a racist, or some stripe of fundamentalist) it’d be over.
Ethically, if he is completely unaware of them, he isn’t involved. Contributing to the pregnancy doesn’t make him complicit in the abortion in any way, IMO. He might think different, but then he also thinks abortion is wrong, so clearly we’re not operating with his ethics in mind, only Penelope’s (which are mine) and I don’t consider him to have any ethical obligations or duties to his every sperm sample, only children carried to term or expected to be.
Fair enough, he has the right to do all of those things. What I do not believe he has a right to is complete information. He only has the right to such medical information from his wife as either affects his own physical being, or his direct physical relationship with his wife (as in the case of D&C surgery). I consider this to be neither (assuming a drug-induced abortion) - it’s an internal physical matter of his wife alone. He doesn’t “own” a piece of the embryo just because it has one of his sperm in it, IMO.
No, she does not. She already provided him with all the ethically-required information when they jointly decided not to have children.
Only if Penelope does not consider abortion just another method of birth control, which Kevin has agreed to. And I do, so in this scenario, so does Penelope. Kevin may think otherwise, but his disagreement doesn’t constitute an ethical obligation on Penelope, it only constrains his own actions.
BTW, I’m answering the question as posed in the OP rather strictly. I do think she should tell him as a matter of courtesy and because sharing things is what happy couples do, but “be polite” and “be a happy couple” are not ethical imperatives to me. Nothing about not telling Kevin crosses any of my personal ethical boundaries - and that includes the “Don’t Lie” one, as “lies of omission” are bullshit to me.
If Kevin directly asks her if she’d having/had an abortion, then there’s an ethical imperative. Not before.
For me, being polite to your spouse is an ethical imperative, because I consider politeness part of treating your spouse well. And treating your spouse well is a must.
To me, it all boils down to where the authority for the “should” comes from
If she should do it, who says she should?
If she shouldn’t do it, who says she shouldn’t?
If she should do it, and she doesn’t, where does the condemnation come from?
Is an abortion like changing a haircut for a woman, something that will definitely be noticed, commented on, and while her decision alone, would affect her husband?
Or is it more like cutting your nails, which is done all the time, is noticeable, but is small enough to be ignored?
Politically motivated as I am, I think abortion should be thought of as the latter, because we’ve seen what it means for men and other busybodies to interfere with a woman’s choice, and so it should, in every possible situation, be seen as a small, non-event to promote the idea that an abortion is nobody’s business and isn’t a big deal. Therefore, I say that a Penelope should not treat it as an event, that just as she presumably doesn’t consult with her husband when she cuts her nails or buys oranges, she should feel similarly non-obligated to inform her husband of a small, trivial, non-event such as an abortion. Its not a big deal, its really not his business, nor should he ever try to make it his business, and both of them treating it as a normal occurrence will reinforce that idea
The thing is, the question isn’t really about abortion. As jsgoddess points out in the post above yours, its about how one should treat one’s spouse.
Yes, she should. If there’s a reason why she can’t bring herself to ask, then that indicates that there are serious relationship problems. Why can’t she ask? Is she afraid of what he will say? Is she too insecure? A couple who can’t talk about these things isn’t very healthy.
I would say then if we’re specifically talking about abortion, then no, she should not inform her husband. But, in something that doesn’t have a right-wing component trying to take away rights, then yes, she should.
What if Kevin had no desire for children and Penelope agreed to accept that, would Kevin be ethically obliged to tell Penelope before he got a vasectomy?
In my opinion no, unless Penelope had previously made it very clear she had some sort of moral or philosophical objection to vasectomies.
My wife had an abortion. I didn’t want her to. She made it seem like she hadn’t decided, and went to get it done while I wasn’t home. I think she was going to make it look like a miscarriage. I found out before she could tell me, so I don’t know what she would have said. Up until it happened, I never thought she would. I think we both fall (fell?) into the “pro-choice, but wouldn’t do it ourselves” camp. Oh well. I wish I would have handled things better on my end. I’m personally a lot better off in many ways, but I have a lot of guilt over things like this. Even if I think the choice is morally OK.
Should? I think so, just because in any relationship that’s something that needs to be discussed. Then if they have a difference of opinion, she decides.
Back when I lived in Salt Lake City, my neighbor quit his job and didn’t tell his wife about it for a month. They had savings, so it didn’t jeopardize them financially, but as the wife put it, the incident really made her rethink what how close they actually were.
Foe most couples, then yes, she should talk to her husband, but she makes the ultimate decision.
Most women don’t feel that an abortion is like cutting one’s nails. Even for those of us who are pro-choice.
Hopefully that will change someday, to make it both easier legally and emotionally. Ideally, unless you had some kind of undeserved veneration for a fetus, people should want it to be easier emotionally. It doesn’t make logical sense that anyone who support abortion wholeheartedly wants it to be more difficult emotionally
A little post-note.
Years ago singer/actress Madonna was married to actor Sean Penn for a short time and during that marriage she had an abortion. Which partly lead to their divorce because he wanted kids.
Later on he remarried and had a baby with this new wife and Madonna, being a little jealous, contacted him and said “I wish you would given me a baby” and he said “I did, you aborted it”.
Madonna incidentally has had about 11 abortions.