Catholics seek justice for unborn child amid new abortion laws

New York City Catholics and abortion opponents voiced outrage Saturday over the lack of justice for an unborn child who was killed in Queens.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown recently charged Anthony Hobson with murder for allegedly killing Jennifer Irigoyen on Feb. 3 — but said hecouldn’t bring charges over her unborn child’s death due to a recent change in abortion law.

“It’s evil,” said a nurse attending Mass at the Church of St. Agnes in Midtown. “It’s a progressive slippery slope.”

“I’m enraged,” said Rose deMarco, 78, of Greenwich Village. “That was murder. [Hobson] murdered two people and he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Irigoyen, 35, was five months pregnant when Hobson, 48, allegedly stabbed her multiple times in the abdomen.

He was initially charged with abortion in the second degree, a felony under the state’s previous statues, as well as second-degree murder for Irigoyen’s death.

But the Queens DA’s office withdrew the abortion count when it learned theReproductive Health Act, signed into law last month, moves abortion from the state’s criminal to public health codes.

That “means it’s open season on pregnant women in New York,” said Dennis Poust of the New York State Catholic Conference.

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