AITAH for refusing to help with "my" child?
Years ago when I was a freshman in college, I got my then girlfriend pregnant accidentally. Typically we used a combination of the pill and condoms, but that night we decided to go without the condom and unfortunately, her hormonal birth control failed. She didn't realize she was pregnant until it was too late for plan b.
I assumed there would be a termination, as we had discussed the possibility of exactly this scenario before in our relationship and both agreed at the time it would be what we wanted. Unfortunately, when push came to shove she decided to go back on that and press forward with the pregnancy. I was not onboard and let her know that. Later, testing showed that the child would be disabled. At that point, I told her very frankly yet again that I absolutely did not want this burden, I reminded her that we had agreed on a termination even had the child been healthy, and I said, in no uncertain terms, that if she decided to press forward with this unilaterally, I would live up to my bare minimum legal obligations and do no more than that. I advised her that being an effectively single mother to a heavily disabled child requiring lifelong care would be far more difficult than she seemed to realize, and that in no version of reality would this ever lead to the two of us building the happy family I think she was imagining. She disregarded that entirely and brought the baby to term. I saw him exactly once. In the end, her parents legally adopted the child. My rights and also obligations were terminated at that time. I lost touch with her, but went on to graduate and have the life I wanted now.
I recently heard from her for the first time since the adoption after she found me on Facebook. Since then, she hasn't done as well for herself. Unfortunately, both of her parents have passed. Her father died of covid a few years back and sadly her mother passed in a car accident a few weeks ago. She is now responsible for her son/adoptive brother, and doesn't have the resources to handle him. Apparently the care of her son was extremely costly even with insurance, and the weren't able to leave much. He's completely incapable of any degree of independence. He's profoundly mentally disabled, and can't even feed himself or use a toilet. I told her that I would not be getting involved under any circumstances, advised her to look into any government assistance or charity that her parents may have overlooked, and to see if having him put in some kind of facility would be feasible. I was very firm about her not contacting me again, and I blocked her.
My wife agrees with me wholeheartedly about not burdening ourselves with this, but she suggested we might have an ethical obligation to send some money to help with the situation. I disagree, and I'm afraid that giving anything at all will be like feeding seagulls. I want nothing to do with it at all. This isn't a serious conflict between us, but I just want to know if her point has merit.
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