Pro-life congressman allegedly asked mistress to get an abortion

A truck covered in anti-abortion messaging drives past a Planned Parenthood location in Illinois.
(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) asked his extramarital affair partner to get an abortion, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Tuesday. Murphy, who enjoys support from pro-life groups like the Family Research Council and LifePAC, apparently made the request earlier this year of Shannon Edwards, a "personal friend" with whom Murphy admitted to an extramarital relationship last month.

Edwards sent Murphy a text message on Jan. 25 of this year, the Post-Gazette reported, taking issue with his pro-life posturing in the public eye considering he'd asked her to terminate a pregnancy. "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," Edwards wrote, per the paper. Murphy apparently replied, saying his staff manages his social media. "I read [the posts] and winced," he wrote. "I told staff don't write anymore."

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Kimberly Alters

Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.