Pro-Life Rep. Tim Murphy Pressured Mistress to Get Abortion
##Text messages reveal pro-life Rep. Tim Murphy urged a woman he was having an affair with to get an abortion. ##
A conservative Republican congressman whom conservative organizations have praised for being an anti-abortion crusader sent text messages to his married lover in January, urging her to get an abortion after believing she was pregnant, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
Rep. Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania, who has a strong anti-abortion voting history, acknowledged last month he had an affair with Shannon Edwards, a forensic psychologist in Pittsburgh. Text messages sent between Murphy's phone number and Edwards in January show the two discussing the pregnancy scare, and Edwards pointed out Murphy's hypocrisy in pressuring her to get an abortion.
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Taking It to the States
"And you have zero issue posting your pro-life stance all over the place when you had no issue asking me to abort our unborn child just last week when we thought that was one of the options," Edwards wrote in one of the messages to Murphy's phone, obtained by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The response she received: "I get what you say about my March for life messages. I've never written them. Staff does them. I read them and winced. I told staff don't write any more. I will."
The congressman, who was elected in 2002, has been praised by the Family Research Council for his stance on abortion and has been endorsed by LifePAC, which opposes abortion rights. He is also a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus, an affiliation often cited by his office, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
Murphy is also a co-sponsor on a bill passed by the House of Representatives Tuesday that would ban abortion after 20 weeks, CNN reported.
The affair between Murphy and Edwards was first exposed as part of Edwards' divorce from her husband Dr. Jesse Sally when he filed in July 2016.
This summer, Sally's attorney filed a request to depose Murphy but Murphy and Edwards' attempts to fight the subpoena failed when a judge ruled Murphy likely had information relevant to the divorce, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
