At a Loss For Words

My boyfriend recently told me something that, in all honesty, I don’t quite know how to deal with. Well, it’s not something that I have to deal with, but I don’t know what to say to him about it and it left me kind of just staring blankly at him knowing that whatever I said was probably not going to be the right thing.

About 8 years ago he got a girl pregnant and she had an abortion. I don’t think this was a girlfriend of his, just someone he was casually sleeping with. I don’t even know if they slept together more than the one time, I didn’t ask. But she had an abortion without telling him. He found out about six months after the fact when they ran into each other and I guess she decided to tell him about it then.

He hasn’t told many people about this because he feels really conflicted about the whole thing. On the one hand, he was relieved because he knew he wasn’t ready to be a father. On another, he feels horrible even admitting that to himself because he views abortion as murder (a point we disagree on). But the thing that upsets him most is that he was never told beforehand about the pregnancy. He was never given a choice in the matter. I asked him if he HAD been given a choice, what would he have chosen? He said that was simple: to have the baby, although he admits it’s easier to say that now without having to actually be presented with the real choice.

He knows I’m strongly pro-choice and we get into heated political debates about this a lot. But the other day when he finally opened up to me about this part of his past I at least understood more of his view, and I truly did not know how to respond to him. I agree with the fact that it is solely the woman’s choice whether or not to terminate her pregnancy, but I cannot help but feel for the guy finding out later that a woman chose to do that and he had no idea. And that’s what I meant when I said that whatever I said to him then was probably not going to be the right thing. He didn’t want to hear from me all of my talking points on the pro-choice movement and women’s rights. It was obvious that even 8 years later this was still affecting him and I didn’t know what to say. I mean, what do you say?