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Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker (Ga.), who has said he opposes abortion with no exceptions, has denied a media report that he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009.

Walker, who aims to unseat Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia, was responding to a Monday report by The Daily Beast that said the candidate’s then-girlfriend provided a receipt, a copy of the check, and a get-well card given to her by on the former football star, who has been endorsed by ex-President Donald Trump.

“This is a flat-out lie — and I deny this in the strongest possible terms,” Walker, 60, said in a statement late Monday.

Matt Fuller, an editor at the publication, said it stood by its report, which Reuters could not independently confirm.

The report comes two weeks before early voting begins in Georgia, one of several critical races that will determine whether Democrats hold onto their narrow majority in the chamber.

It is the latest scandal for Walker, a first-time candidate for office who has also faced allegations of domestic violence, as has his opponent, Warnock.

Abortion looms large ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

Warnock, who serves as pastor at the Atlanta church once led by Martin Luther King Jr., backs access to abortion and other reproductive health care right up until the moment of birth, saying on his campaign website that the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade “cannot stand.”

Copyright 2022 Thomson/Reuters