Pope Assails Euthanasia and Abortion

On a day that was devoted largely to concerns for health care, Pope John Paul II today renewed attacks on “the great evils of abortion and euthanasia.”

Speaking to members of the Catholic Health Assn. on the fifth-day of his 10-day tour of the United States, the Pope also repeated the church’s opposition to the use of biomedical technology to achieve artificial fertilization--opposition which has drawn strong criticism from some health care professionals and from couples who have been unable to conceive.

The church has not taken its stand, the Pope said, “in order to discourage scientific progress or to judge harshly those who seek to extend the frontiers of human knowledge and skill, but in order to affirm the moral truths which must guide the application of this knowledge and skill.”

Sacredness of Life

“The Church encourages genuine advances in knowledge,” he said, “but she also insists on the sacredness of human life at every stage and in every condition. The cause she serves is the cause of human life and human dignity.”

The pontiff flew here this morning from San Antonio. He was cheered by an estimated 200,000 persons on a two-mile motorcade through Phoenix, a turnout that--as in other cities the Pope has visited--was considerably lighter than anticipated.

The Pope was scheduled this afternoon to meet with 16,000 Catholic American Indians in what organizers hoped would mark a step forward in the sometimes stormy relations between Indians and Catholicism.

Ill Children Visited

His first stop here was at St. Joseph’s Hospital for a visit with three critically ill children in their rooms.

“Johnny, can you wake up and open your eyes for a minute? There’s someone here to see you,” said Hope Adrian, whose 15-year-old son, Johnny, was in the first room to be visited by the Pope. The boy has a brain tumor which has been diagnosed as terminal.

In the second room, the Pope took tiny, 2 1/2-month-old Brooke Johnson from her mother and held her briefly. Brooke weighed 1 pound, 5 ounces when she was born three months prematurely on June 29 and, according to her mother, Debby Johnson, now weighs only 2 pounds, 10 ounces.

“This is beautiful work,” he told the hospital employees after the visit.