GUTHRIE - State Representative Jason Murphey continued his mid-March
tradition of presenting a yearly donation of $8,241.92 from his
legislative salary to officials from Crossroads, An Open Door For Life
Choices, Inc., located in Guthrie. Crossroads provides faith-based,
pro-life counseling and support services to expectant mothers.

Murphey said that Oklahoma legislators are some of the highest paid
part-time legislators in the nation, making more than double the
regional average and is using the donation to demonstrate that
legislators in Oklahoma should not be paid so much 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 not a good
practice to pay legislators more than double the regional average,"
Murphey said.

Crossroads is a Christian-based non-profit organization focused on
supporting the values of the sanctity of human life, pre-marital
abstinence, and marital fidelity.

Their services provide limited pregnancy related medical services,
options education, client advocacy, support for prenatal care,
parenting education, post-abortion peer counseling, and abstinence
education.

Working with Focus on the Family, Crossroads has been approved for an
80% grant for a new ultrasound machine. With the complimentary scans,
Crossroads will be able to offer abortion-vulnerable women a scan to
confirm viable intrauterine pregnancies. Statistics show that 89% of
abortion-minded women choose life for their unborn babies after seeing
them through ultrasound and receiving truthful information about their
options.

The amount donated reflects the difference in legislative pay and the
per capita pay in Oklahoma at the time Murphey was elected. During his
2006 campaign for office, Murphey pledged to continue making the
pledge until legislative salaries are adjusted.