(2004-04-12) — Sen. John Forbes Kerry, the presumptive Democrat nominee attempting to become the nation’s second Roman Catholic president, yesterday said, “Jesus Christ would have been saved from the agony of crucifixion if abortion had been legal and affordable in the early part of the first century A.D.”

Mr. Kerry received communion during a Roman Catholic worship service Easter morning despite warnings from several bishops that Catholic politicians who support abortion should not receive the Eucharist.

“From the gospel accounts, we know that Mary was not yet married when she unexpectedly became pregnant,” Mr. Kerry told a crowd of admirers on the steps of the Paulist Center, described by The New York Times as a kind of New Age church. “Because Mary could not choose a safe, affordable abortion, Jesus was forced to grow to adulthood and fulfill the prophesies — enduring the inhumanity of being tortured and nailed to the cross.”

Mr. Kerry says he dreams of “an America where no person will ever suffer pain and death beyond the womb.”