Representative Tim Murphy (R-Pennsylvania) sent a letter of resignation to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) on Thursday, after a report surfaced earlier this week that he had urged a woman with whom he had an extramarital affair to get an abortion.
The scandal broke the same day Murphy, a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus, voted in favor of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which criminalizes abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on text message exchanges from January of this year between Murphy and a woman named Shannon Edwards. “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 to Murphy, according to the Post-Gazette. Ultimately, the couple found out that Edwards was not pregnant.
Though Murphy had initially said he would not seek re-election, Ryan confirmed on Thursday that Murphy will now resign effective October 21st. “It was Dr. Murphy’s decision to move on to the next chapter of his life, and I support it,” Ryan said in a statement.
