News

To join a Facebook page in support of the parents of Joseph Maraachli, click here.

Image

LONDON, Ontario, February 18, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As thousands rally behind one-year-old Joseph Maraachli after the Ontario Superior Court ruled that his life support will be removed Monday against the wishes of his parents, a group of locals from London have organized a silent prayer vigil for Joseph and his family.

The vigil will take place at 9 a.m. on Monday outside Victoria Hospital, at Wellington and Commissioners.

The family’s struggle has drawn international headlines in the last 24 hours amidst fears that the court decision facilitates a system where doctors are authorized to force life and death decisions on patients.  Over 1,300 people have joined a Facebook page to “Save baby Joseph.”

Joseph has been on life support at London’s Victoria Hospital since October.  The doctors gave him no chance of recovery, so his parents, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader, asked them to perform a tracheotomy, which would allow them to take Joseph home.  But the doctors refused, saying the procedure was too risky.

In January, the Consent and Capacity Board of Ontario sided with the hospital, and a date for removing Joseph’s respirator was set.

The family was able to hold it off by filing an appeal, but on Thursday Superior Court Justice Helen Rady held up the board’s decision, allowing the doctors to remove Joseph’s life support on Monday at 10 a.m.

“There’s no more humanity.  There’s no more chance.  I’ve tried everything for him.  No more appeals, nothing,” Moe Maraachli, Joseph’s father, told LifeSiteNews Thursday.

“I asked them: why not send him to Windsor and let him die at home?” he continued.  “They said they will give him injection, but I don’t want to.”

“I ask God, and maybe he breathe,” he added.

“I don’t get it.  There’s nothing here that I get.  It makes no sense,” said Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.  “What is in this for the hospital and the doctor?  Why would they bother doing this?”

“Is it that they want to simply say, we have control?” he asked.  “If it’s about their control, then we’re in serious trouble.  They now control when someone lives and when someone dies, and who makes those decisions, and how those decisions are made.”

Schadenberg said this would be “worse than the death panel concept that’s being debated in the US.  It really is, it’s much worse.”

“That has serious repercussions, because you simply cannot trust the moral authority of the health care institution or the doctors,” he added.

To join a Facebook page in support of the parents of Joseph Maraachli, click here.

Contact Information:

Bonnie Adamson
President and CEO, London Health Sciences Centre
800 Commissioners Road East
London, Ontario Canada N6A 5W9
Phone: 519-685-8462
E-mail: [email protected]

Dalton McGuinty, Premier
Legislative Building
Queen’s Park
Toronto ON M7A 1A1
Fax: (416) 325-3745
E-mail: Use this form.

Tim Hudak, Opposition Leader
The Ontario PC Party
19 Duncan Street
Suite 401
Toronto, ON M5H 3H1
Phone: 416-861-0020
Toll-free: 1-800-903-6453
Fax: 416-861-9593
Email: [email protected]