I had an abortion years ago and never told the man I was dating at the time, and recently I found out he’s struggling with infertility with his wife. I haven’t spoken to him in years. We weren’t married, the relationship was unstable, and when I got pregnant I knew immediately I didn’t want to continue it.

I made the decision alone. At the time I told myself it was my body, my decision, and telling him would only complicate something I had already decided. I still believe I had the right to make that choice. But when I recently heard through mutual friends that he and his wife have been trying for a baby for years, I felt something I can’t explain.

Not because I think the pregnancy from back then was some guaranteed child that should have existed, and definitely not because I regret my decision in some simple way. I don’t. But I suddenly wondered whether he would feel robbed of knowledge about something that involved him biologically, even if the final decision was mine.

Part of me thinks contacting him now would be unbelievably selfish and cruel. What would he even do with that information? It could damage his marriage, add pain to infertility, and reopen a relationship that ended long ago. Another part of me wonders whether I’m keeping quiet because I’m protecting him or because I’m protecting the version of myself that never had to answer for excluding him entirely.

Some truths don’t become more ethical just because you tell them late. Sometimes they just become heavier.