WASHINGTON, D.C., October 5, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – The “pro-life” Republican Congressman who suggested his mistress procure an abortion if she was pregnant is resigning from the U.S. House later this month.
Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan, R-WI, announced the news today in a brief statement.
“This afternoon I received a letter of resignation from Congressman Tim Murphy, effective October 21,” Ryan said. “It was Dr. Murphy's decision to move on to the next chapter of his life, and I support it. We thank him for his many years of tireless work on mental health issues here in Congress and his service to the country as a naval reserve officer.”
Murphy announced Wednesday that he wouldn’t seek re-election when his term ended in January 2019.
“In the coming weeks I will take personal time to seek help as my family and I continue to work through our personal difficulties and seek healing,” Murphy said. “I ask you to respect our privacy during this time.”
Murphy's October 4 statement said he'd spend the remainder of his term working on mental health issues.
Politico’s Rachel Bade attributed Murphy’s resignation to “pressure” from his colleagues in the House.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette revealed earlier this week that text messages from the cell phone of Rep. Tim Murphy, who self-identifies as pro-life, said he “winced” at pro-life statements his staff wrote for him.
“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,” Murphy’s mistress, Shannon Edwards, wrote to him via text message on January 25, just days before the annual March for Life.
He admitted to having an affair with Edwards about a month ago. Murphy is in the middle of a divorce.
The text message response sent from Murphy’s phone said: “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.”
Murphy represents Pennsylvania’s 18th district. Located in Southwest Pennsylvania stretching to the Pittsburgh suburbs, it was historically Democratic but socially conservative. It’s now turned red; fifty-eight percent of the district voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Murphy ran unopposed in the primary and general election in 2016.