Hemingway avoids using the word, but paints a very vivid picture. The girl in the story sounds very young compared to the man, comparing the alcohol to licorice, and he calls her "Jig." She is very worried about the operation, and very uncertain, and the man doesn't let his opinion go unknown. He is never harsh with her, but still very pushy.
He assures her that things will go back to "how they were," because this is the only thing "that's made us unhappy." He also tells her that he doesn't want her to do anything she doesn't want to do, just that he won't worry about the procedure because it is so simple.
I don't know what Hemingway was thinking when he wrote this, but I know that everything is just too simple.
I've known a few girls who have gotten abortions, and it never stops after the "simple procedure." This isn't a preach on whether or not girls should get an abortion or should have the right to get an abortion, but just an opinion of the weight of such a "simple procedure."
The weight that the man feels in this story is nothing above a physical one. He sees the procedure as just that: strictly a medical ordeal. The girl seems, to me, to think that whether or not she keeps the baby determines whether she stays young or becomes an "adult."
She likes to say "cute" things and have the world in front of her, and also seems stuck between not wanting the procedure yet wanting things to be as they were before.
If I got any sort of moral from this story, it would be this:
You can remove a problem and try not to think about it, but things likely will never go back to "how they were."
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