Unless this is your marriage and your pregnancy, why would you care?

Obviously in an ideal world, both partners are honest with each other and on the same page with regards to reproduction. But unless you specify exact circumstances and fully understand the dynamics within that relationship, anyone else's opinion on someone's action is pretty well irrelevant.

I think that's something they should have discussed before getting married, really. Children are a huge responsibility, and one should know whether the person they've chosen as their life partner shares their views on whether to take that responsibility or not.

If the husband wants children and his wife does not, he has no right to force her to bear them for him. He does not own her uterus, and even though it is his sperm that created the unborn child, he has no right to force her to carry the pregnancy to term against her will. It is the woman who must bear the pregnancy, who is at risk for the many different discomforts and conditions that could arise, and who must labor and deliver or go through a painful abdominal surgery. It is not the husband's right to force her to shoulder this simply because his sperm fertilized her egg.

its still the woman's choice.
if the woman were not married and had an abortion, the boyfriend could have still wanted to have kept the child..why is it different for a married woman?

The question is for debate purposes. In your opinion is it right or wrong? No one is saying she should not have the right to abortion the question is does she have a right to keep that information to herself when it drastically and irreparably alters the future of another living breathing adult being? I think its just as wrong to keep an abortion away from your married partner when its his kid as it is for him to cheat with no condom and not tell you. Both are potential deal/marriage breakers and if you dont tell the other person you force them into staying in a situation they would never willingly be in.

No one is talking about forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term, i repeat THIS IS NOT ABOUT FORCING ANYONE TO CARRY A PREGNANCY TO TERM. Its about doing something that would cause a breakup/divorce and keeping ti to yourself. You can substitute abortion with cheating because marriage doesn't give you ownership of another person's genitals they are not "yours" but you expect monogamy (in most instances) just as if you want children but you cant bear them you expect your wife to do so, if she chooses an abortion you may want to leave because you want children in your future and she doesn't. Is it ok to keep such dealbreaker info to yourself so that you can continue to remain in a marriage thats built on a lie. the lie being abortion.

Because a marriage is lifelong, if the man wants children and she does not she SHOULD tell him this from the jump but in this instance she either changed her mind about kids or unilaterally decided not now and she knows that her decision to abort would be a dealbreaker for him should he not be told that she aborted?

This is NOT about stopping her its about whether or not its ok to keep the abortion to herself and trap him into childlessness instead of leaving him or telling the truth. Either way she can remain childless. She can abort without his consent or permission. Its about whether or not he should be told when he wants children and she does not.

I think ideally, people should be aware of where their significant other stands on the subject of abortion and having children. Nobody is "trapped" in childlessness but plenty of people betray their spouses because they decide reproducing is more important to them than the one they entered a marriage into under the guise of "love".

I think that if a woman can't trust her spouse to tell him she's pregnant/wants to abort then there's something deeper wrong with the relationship than someone just changing their mind.

Nobody can tell the future and a lot of people enter a marriage under the assumption that there will be children...which is a mistake in itself even if BOTH parties want offspring. Most people don't even know they're infertile until they start trying to get pregnant.

Either they change their mind and start giving the other party ultimatums: "Agree to get pregnant/get me pregnant or this can't work!"

Or one of them finds out he/she is sterile and the other dumps them (I REALLY hate people that pull this crap) for another stud or broodmare.

It's equally repulsive when one spouse tries to get pregnant or impregnate the other on the sly without their consent. I consider that to be just a step below rape and in the case of the woman, the man is actually risking her health by trying to put her in a condition that puts a strain on her body.

People should always find out where their partners stand on the issue but there are cases where people change their mind one way or the other later on down the line. I would hope that when they claimed to love their spouse in their marriage vows, they meant it enough to stick it through and find a workable solution for everyone.

I think some people take the term wed"lock" a bit too literally, though. It's like the old joke about the "ball and chain".

The question is irrelevant to the debate here. You are not asking whether or not she should be able to have the abortion, you are asking whether it's bad form not to tell her husband. You are trying to bring in a discussion about whether people need to discuss their childbearing plans, not whether a woman is entitled to abort. As such, you are asking something that is about the state of the relationship between two people, not about abortion.

Agreed. If your point isn't about abortion but about keeping secrets, why post it in the Abortion Debate forum?

Should one person keep secrets from the other? My answer is no. My more detailed answer is that he/she shouldn't have to. If the woman is lying about having an abortion, that leads me to wonder "why?".

I agree but just as soeone can be trapped into kids you ca be trapped into childlessness. If you want children and your spouse does not and they don't share that view then you're with this person THINKING abnd BELIEVING you want the same kids, not wanting kids making them irreparably incompatible. That isn't a situation that can be worked out becaue either someone will be miserable and childless or someone will be miserable and a parent.

The lie here is abortion. Everyone in every relationship lies. If someone claimed they never lied to their significant other about anything int heri entire lives, they are lying.
Humans are flawed, the truth is perfect no human being is perfectly honest about every single thing. So teh subject does matter.

This was mostly inspired by an episode of House where a woman was taking birth control while undergoing fertility treatment because she didn't want to have another child but she'd rather lie to her husband about why she was sick than to tell him she didn't want more children as they had originally planned for fear that he'd leave her. I think she should have left long before fertility treatments were even discussed. and FYI the guy said that he'd rather have a healthy wife than another baby but she STILL did not tell him her decision so I wanted to pose this question about this lie on this subject.

I can tell that you don't get this AT ALL.

Pregnancy is a very hard, arduous ordeal. Childbirth is so painfully agonizing, it is akin to torture. NO ONE has a right to force another human being through that. GOT IT???

YOU just font get it. I HAVE A SON, I've BEEN THROUGH LABOR OM:Y TO HAVE A C-SECTION so please miss me with the torture bull, thanks. No one is saying forfe anyone into anoything. I was simply asking was it right to have it and not tell him, Have your abortion its your body but if he wants to leave to find someone who wants kids its his right to that he can;t exercise if she doesnt tell him she doesnt want kids and that she'd going to abort every pregnancy that occurs. If you disagree that she should abort and he shouldn't know so she can stay married to him then fine but who the hell said to force her into pregnancy? Seriously just because I don't think embryos are disgusting and vile or subhuman demonic creatures doesn;t mean I'm not pro-choice. I'm a mother I'll NEVER think horribly of embryos even though I hold on to my stance that abortion should always be legal. I've said a million times SOME PEOPLE SHOULD NEVER BE MOTHERS OR EXPERIENCE PREGNANCY.

I bet you haven't!

But in case case, so what? Why is that relevant to discussing abortion? Most women who have abortions either already have children, or go on to have children later. Childlessness and abortion are only tangentially related.

This is what I was going to say, why would the abortion have to be to people without children. Maybe the wife doesn't feel she has the energy to care for another child, what is she's already at her wits end taking care of her pre-exiting children and the last thread of her mental sanity is about to snap. Her husband may not have any idea how stressing this is or maybe he just doesn't care.

I'll pose this question to you, this happened to a former co-worker of mine. She found out she was pregnant in her mid forties. All of her children were either in high school or college at that point. She had just reentered the work force and had begun picking up her career (she had been a stay at home mom for 23 years). She was really enjoying her new found freedom, when blam, a late life pregnancy. Her husband wasn't happy but wouldn't listen to her when she stated they should think about an abortion. At one point in their lives did they want children, yes and they had them. But he was in his early fifties and she was 44, besides the danger of a pregnancy at that age, the rate of birth defects goes though the roof. She ended up having an abortion behind his back when her blood pressure started to spike and she was only four months along. She told him she miscarried, I think he knows the truth, he heard the doctors warnings about how this pregnancy was very dangerous, but the lie was easier for him to believe. He could keep being pro-life and save face. Was it right in her case to lie, it makes it easier for everyone involved not to face the truth.

Not everything in life is so black and white, you need to start seeing the grey area.

There is a gray area but the question was for a woman who DID NOT want kids not one who had already had children and raised them with him. Not having another kid and already being a parent is one thing but WANTING to be a parent and trying to be one with someone who will always use BC or abort is another. I have a child he is my avatar if another woman was denied an epidural for whatever reason then that's something she needs to take up with her doctor on why labor was so painful for her when pain medication is available. Based on posts on here most women on her who've had abortions chose to also use sedation or some form of pain relief, while sedation isnt available for labor an epidural is strong enough to allow you to be awake AND conscious while someone cuts open your abdomen and uterus without you feeling any pain whatsoever at the time.

The bigger issue in your proposed situation is that this woman would be facing a pregnancy at advanced maternal age almost a decade into being at an advanced maternal age and the health risks for her and the unborn child are much higher than for a healthy young woman. Then factor in the fact that her husband is so old and his age affects the quality of his sperm in terms of the chances of having a baby born with birth defects etc this becomes much more of a health issue. Then you factor in the fact that if she wanted one period and he wasnt trying to hear it she should have left. Why is it so easy to scream that you don't want to be pregnant with some *insert adjective here for zygote/embryo/fetus* to a stranger than it is to calmly tell your husband that you don't want to bear another child? Why would she rather allow people to think of her as a victim (miscarriage is NOT a choice and claiming miscarriage after an abortion by choice is like claiming rape after consentual sex only difference is one lie places a person in a marriage they otherwise wouldn't want to be in and the other places a person in jail).

After the abortion one could hope she got herself sterilized so she wouldn't "have" to lie again to save her marriage.