Report: Rep. Murphy Urged Mistress To Get Abortion During Pregnancy Scare
Follow KDKA-TV: Facebook | Twitter
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Pro-life Congressman Tim Murphy reportedly urged a woman with whom he had an affair to get an abortion last January.
That's what our news partners at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette are reporting, after obtaining copies of text messages between Rep. Murphy and Shannon Edwards, the woman with whom the congressman has admitted to having an affair.
Rep. Murphy apologized for the affair, issuing this statement last month:
"Last year, I became involved in an affair with a personal friend. This is nobody's fault but my own, and I offer no excuses. To the extent that there should be any blame in this matter, it falls solely upon me."
In a Jan. 25 text message, Edwards told the congressman, "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."
Lisa Washington's Report:
At the time, both thought Edwards was pregnant, although it turned out she wasn't.
In response at the time, Rep. Murphy, who has been endorsed by LIFEPAC because of his strong anti-abortion views, said it was his staff who wrote the strong march for life message, not him.
Ironically, on Tuesday, Rep. Murphy voted for a bill he co-sponsored to outlaw late-term abortions.
In response, Sasha Bruce, the senior vice president for campaigns and strategy for NARAL Pro-Choice America, issued this statement:
"I wish it were shocking to learn that yet another Republican Congressman tried to cover up an affair by invoking the same abortion rights he tries to deny to others. Literally hours after this story broke, Congressman Murphy demonstrated the height of hypocrisy by voting to ban abortion for women across the nation after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
"You shouldn't have to be a member of Congress just to access your right to abortion. With his personal and public actions, Congressman Murphy has shown that he seeks to control women in every facet of his life, be it to cover up an affair or to deny all Americans the right to legal abortion. To Congressman Murphy and the Republican Party, women's rights are nothing more than an inconvenience to be dispensed with."
In another matter, the Post-Gazette obtained a six-page memo written to Rep. Murphy by his chief-of-staff who accused the congressman of "sustained inappropriate behavior to staff."
In the June 8 memo, Chief-of-Staff Susan Mosychuk wrote: "I have both witnessed and been exposed to hostile, erratic, unstable, angry, aggressive, and abusive behavior from the congressman."
When KDKA's Jon Delano reached out to Rep. Murphy for comment late Tuesday afternoon, he was told by a spokesperson, "the office has no comment or response to the story."