By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
Thousands of people around the world are praying for a one year-old Canadian boy on life support who is caught between a hospital that wants to withdraw treatment and parents who want to bring him home to die.
LifeSite is reporting that one year-old Joseph Maraachli narrowly escaped death yesterday when a delay prevented a court ordered removal of his life support which was scheduled to take place on Monday morning. Joseph, who is currently in a hospital in London, Ontario, is in a vegetative state and doctors say there is no chance for his recovery.
His parents, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader, have asked doctors to perform a tracheotomy on their son so they can take him home, even if that means he will die.
“We hope to bring Joseph home and give him a chance, like any human being, to fight for his life and to die with the love of his family around him,” Moe said during a press conference on Monday.
The family is being assisted in its fight by Alex Schadenberg, president of the Euthanisia Prevention Coalition, who said the doctors and the courts “have gone too far” in the case.
“This family wasn’t asking for extraordinary medical treatment,” Schadenberg told the Toronto Sun. “They were willing to care for the baby at home and, to me, this is a reasonable request. To me, this is a question of who has the right to decide, and I’m concerned the decisions that have been made set a precedence in place that the doctors now have more powers than they did in the past.”
Schadenberg contacted Mark Handelman, a lawyer with extensive experience in these types of cases. Handelman said he hasn’t yet explored whether it makes sense to appeal to the Ontario’s high court because of the possibility of transferring Joseph to a hospital in Michigan.
The London Ontario Health Sciences Centre has confirmed that it is indeed working with Children’s Hospital of Michigan to provide the necessary information on Joseph.
“Everyone hopes Joseph ends up in Michigan,” Handelman said.
Joseph’s plight can be followed on the “Save Baby Joseph” page on Facebook.
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