Do I tell him?

For someone who doesn't want this baby and the 'father' is someone you barely know who isn't interested in pursuing things with you anyway, you aren't half overthinking this.

My money is on this being one of those situations where, in spite of all your protestations about how you can't be a mum again, you will get to the point of termination and suddenly have this epiphany that you 'can't possibly go through with it, this baby deserves a chance to live, what if I regret this forever? Yada yada.'

One of those 'lady doth protest too much' accidental pregnancies where you go through the motions of saying all the things you think people expect you to say because you know that terminating is the only sensible thing to do for your personal situation and people will judge you if you don't terminate. But deep down you have no intention of doing that. You are just going through a period of denial about it.

To me, that is the only logical explanation for why you'd go through all this performative hand wringing over whether to tell this man.

Sorry OP but this "I'm such an honest person" business is coming across as pretty performative. You've known this bloke for all of 5 minutes, you've no intention of having the baby and he couldn't give a flying fuck anyway. I can't help but think you want to achieve something by telling him, but I'm not convinced it's due to your scrupulous ethics.

Well there isn't going to be a child as the Op is having an abortion ,
Have you never heard of one night stands ?
Plenty of people have them just because you wouldn't have one doesn't mean there is anything inherently wrong with them,as long as its between two consenting adults .

I genuinely am curious, and I'm not crowing or sneering. I have no idea why anyone would want to have sex with someone they don't know, or barely know, and that's a perfectly acceptable opinion. There is ALWAYS the risk of pregnancy, no matter how careful you are; contraception is not failsafe. And then when it does fail, as it has here (although why the OP didn't take the MAP, god only knows) you're either forced into the situation the OP finds herself in, or stuck co-parenting with an almost or total stranger for at least 18 years of your life, or going it alone and never telling the bloke and leaving the child without a father.

And how do you explain that to the child when they start asking questions?

Can you explain what he did wrong, exactly? What behaviour are you criticising him for?

WTF?

They had consensual sex, HE USED A CONDOM and it was actually OP who had no sense and didn't take the morning after pill when the condom split.

There are several posters on here who are determined to make this the man's fault, despite the fact that he there's nothing to blame him for.

Why? Because I don't think what she did was very sensible and now she's in a shit situation because of it?

She doesn't sound very vulnerable to me and if people weren't casually shagging around with people they hardly know, dilemmas like this would never arise.

Is the reason you can’t articulate because you think it’s the done thing ? Because of the “he has a right to know” movement?

Don’t tell him. You have no idea what his reaction might be and your priority should be your well-being and the well being of your DC. And to me that means minimising the number of people who know, especially people you don’t know well enough to know how they would react. He could turn up at your home and frighten the DC. He could spread it around your community so your DC find out from some random

You’ve made it clear you don’t see any benefit to yourself in telling him. Think about the damage he could do if you did tell him.

And then what?
What impact you think telling a man you had casual sex with that you got pregnant and had an abortion, will have ?
It's not about protecting the men ,what could he do anyway?
The Op is having an abortion as is her right irrespective of how he may or may not feel about it
They used contraception and it failed that's no-one, s fault.

I experienced this recently except that the guy was a friend. I chose not to tell him. I've seen him since and it was the right decision.

No need to tell but do, for your own benefit, get better advice about more reliable contraception.

You don't want more unplanned STI or pregnancies.

“A very selfish act that could impact on him” wtaf? Disagree 100%. HIS behaviours have impacted on him. He needs to know what a lucky “escape” he had. Christ - let’s not upset the men, eh?

You absolutely fucking DO tell him. 100%. He needs to know that casual sex has consequences for women, that condoms are mandatory regardless of any pill, that he’s escaped a life-changing fuckup thanks to your stoicism and sense. When women “protect” men from this kind of thing we are enabling them to ignore the realities of their behaviours.

Can't see the point in telling him if you've decided not to go ahead with the pregnancy. What would it achieve

Since you’ve already made your decision and it doesn’t sound like he’s someone who’ll offer meaningful support, there’s no real reason to tell him. It’ll likely just add stress for you. Focus on taking care of yourself right now — that’s what matters most.

I don’t see any point in telling him and for all you know he could start making waves, insisting you keep it etc (unlikely but some people thrive on drama). He’d have no right but do you need any potential drama?

agree with most responses here - why tell him? the only reason I can think of is to make you feel better which would be at his expense. You're not going to give him any input in to you decision or even ask for his opinion. In my mind telling him would be a very selfish act that could really impact him

I think maybe OP, that you’re having trouble with your decision because you feel like, in most situations, although the woman is the one who ultimately makes the decision about continuing or terminating a pregnancy, it’s kind of respectful or seen as the right thing to do to at least have a conversation with the man, so he can have his say/show his reaction. Like it’s morally better for the woman to make that decision after hearing the man’s viewpoint and taking it into consideration when she makes the decision. I think that’s an understandable viewpoint and it’s probably how I would feel unless I felt the discussion would put me at risk. In your situation, there isn’t a decision to be made. You’ve said you can’t carry another pregnancy to term regardless of the circumstances of the conception. I do think that changes things a bit. With a supportive partner you’d tell him anyway but in this case it’s likely to be a lose/lose situation and make things more difficult for both of you.
I wouldn’t tell him in your shoes. I think you should put off the worry about it until after you’ve had the termination. You’ve said that there’s no way you can continue the pregnancy anyway so have the termination and then worry about whether you think the man should know what happened. I think you’ll probably just feel relieved and the worry about whether you should tell him will disappear once continuing the pregnancy is no longer even a hypothetical possibility.

I'm going to go against the grain here. At the moment you are carrying all the responsibility of the pregnancy, arranging termination etc. Mainly as it's not sitting right with you for not telling him, so free yourself from that feeling and tell him. It may get more complicated as you don't know how he will react but think about yourself only and what feels right for you and go with your intuition.

I would consider a scenario that may or may not happen but if there was even a 0.01% chance of it happening, I would not tell him.

Imagine he knows about this and just brushes it off, you get the termination and it all looks good but later, for whatever reason, he ruminates on it, becomes bitter and chooses to use it against you.

Why would you give him that tiny bit of power?

Why would you give him the opportunity to tell others of the abortion, something that may get back to your kids or a prospective DP or or or....

No way should you tell him. Once it's out there, you have no control when the decision has been made to terminate and it's not his business.

Why on earth would you tell him? Especially if you aren't even progressing the pregnancy. What is the point? How is it a 'courtesy' when he won't have any say in the outcome either way?

If you never want DC to know, you can only control that by keeping the decision to abort between you and your healthcare practitioners.

Shoe on the other foot, would you want to know if he was pregnant but was giving you no say in it? No. So keep it simple. You aren't having a baby, you're scheduling an appointment to take some pills to trigger a period. He doesn't need to know.something is can't influence.

My strong advice is not to complicated your decision.

You couldn't foresee his flip flopping after sex so don't give him the opportunity to do something silly, like posturing that he wants the baby and your kids finding out.

What would the advantage be to either of you to tell him?
Possibly consequences

• he begs you to keep it, you change you mind, and he leaves his partner for you
• he begs you to keep it, and wants to coparent with you, meaning your child would have a “step parent” before you start, causing problems in his new relationship
• He accepts your decision but lives with “guilt” for a situation he didn’t ask for and has no control over
• it has no affect on him and his life at all
• he either keeps it a secret from his new partner or tells her, which again might cause them problems.
• he might support you through the procedure, (which would probably affect his relationship) or he might not (which you would resent)

Are you usually as judgmental and snippy with your friends as you are to the OP? Or do you simply not have any friends?