Rep. Tim Murphy on Tuesday voted for a bill he co-sponsored that makes abortion illegal after 20 weeks into a pregnancy, soon after news broke that he told a woman he was having an affair with that she should consider having an abortion.
Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican, recently admitted to having an affair with Shannon Edwards, a forensic psychologist who lives in Pittsburgh and who later learned she was not pregnant. He has publicly opposed abortion and has been commended for his stances by conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council.
Murphy’s office declined to comment. His relationship with Edwards has ended.
The bill, which has support from the White House but is likely doomed in the Senate, is called the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. If the bill were to become law, a medical provider who gives a woman an abortion to a woman who is 20 weeks or more into a pregnancy would face a fine, up to five years in prison, or both. The bill includes exemptions in cases of rape, incest or a pregnant woman’s health.
In January, Edwards sent Murphy a text calling him out for a Facebook post that opposed abortion late in a pregnancy, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“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.
Murphy replied that he understood her frustrations.
“I’ve never written them. Staff does them. I read them and winced. I told staff don’t write anymore. I will.”
Later in the year, Murphy sponsored and voted for a bill blocking the use of federal funds to pay for abortions and expressed desire that “we will once again be a nation committed to honoring life from the moment of conception and ensuring American taxpayer dollars are never spent to end a life before it even begins.”
• Diana Stancy Correll contributed to this report.
