Published: March 24, 2008 02:01 pm      

Rep. Murphey makes donation to pro-life ministry

EDMOND — OKLAHOMA CITY — State Rep. Jason W. Murphey has presented a donation of $8,241.92 from his legislative salary to officials from Crossroads, An Open Door For Life Choices Inc., in Guthrie. Crossroads provides faith-based, pro-life counseling and support services to expectant mothers.

Murphey said that Oklahoma legislators are the third-highest paid, part-time legislators in the nation, making more than double the regional average. Murphey said he made the donation — the difference between Oklahoma lawmakers’ salaries and the salary of the average working Oklahoman when Murphey was first elected to office — to emphasize that legislators in Oklahoma should not be paid more than other legislators in the region and to illustrate the importance of pro-life services such as Crossroads.

“In order to reform government, we must cut out wasteful state government spending. I hope most would agree that it is wasteful to pay legislators more than double the regional average,” said Murphey, R-Guthrie.

Crossroads, a pro-life organization that provides a support network for expectant mothers in Guthrie, is working with Focus on the Family to convert a Pregnancy Resource Center to a Pregnancy Help Medical Clinic. As an evangelical ministry that upholds the sanctity of life, Crossroads provides practical assistance, encouragement and unconditional love to women and families facing crisis pregnancies. Crossroads offers alternatives to abortion, promotes sexual purity and provides post abortion counseling.

After conversion to a Pregnancy Help Medical Clinic, Crossroads will be able to offer abortion-vulnerable women in the community a free ultrasound scan to confirm viable intrauterine pregnancies. Statistics show that 89 percent of abortion-minded women choose life for their unborn babies after seeing them through ultrasound and receiving truthful information about their options.

Focus on the Family’s Option Ultrasound Program is helping to place ultrasounds in 650 Pregnancy Resource Clinics like Crossroads. There have been 81,000 babies saved across the country already, and it is Crossroads’ stated goal to bring this life-saving technology to Guthrie.