Pro-life hypocrite and GOP Congressman Tim Murphy announced on Wednesday that he will retire at the end of his term following a damn set of revelations about his private life.
According to theĀ Associated Press,Ā “Republican Congressman Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania has announced plans to retire at the end of this term ā amid tawdry revelations of an extramarital affair.”
The AP added: “Murphy, who is in his eighth term, says in a statement Wednesday that he will ‘take personal time to seek help as my family and I continue to work through our personal difficulties.'”
The news of Murphy’s retirement comes after the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reportedĀ earlier this week that he urged his mistress to have an abortion.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
More from the report that has led to this moment:
A text message sent in January to U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy by a woman with whom he had an extra-marital relationship took him to task for an anti-abortion statement posted on Facebook from his office’s public account.
“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,” Shannon Edwards, a forensic psychologist in Pittsburgh with whom the congressman admitted last month to having a relationship, wrote to Mr. Murphy on Jan. 25, in the midst of an unfounded pregnancy scare.
A text from Mr. Murphyās cell phone number that same day in response says, “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.”
It’s troubling enough, of course, that someone like Murphy ā a man who claims to be a “family values” Republican ā was having an affair. The idea that he was actively trying to get his mistress to have an abortion turns his hypocrisy up to 11.
But Murphy is no outlier when it comes to this pro-life, family values hypocrisy. For proof of that, we need not look any further than the White House.
Donald Trump ā the supposed pro-life Republican candidate who received widespread 81 percent support from white evangelicals last year ā has also lived a life completely contrary to those values. Nowhere was that more evident than the troubling Access Hollywood tape, where the president bragged about engaging in sexual assault.
This kind of behavior proves that, to Republicans, the mantle of family values is simply a political tool they employ to win elections. Through their personal conduct, they repeatedly show us they don’t mean a single word of it.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obamaās presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
