A 20-month-old Ontario baby at the heart of an ethical and legal debate over a child's right to life died overnight.
Joseph Maraachli died shortly after midnight on Wednesday at his family's Windsor, Ont., home, his uncle confirmed in a Facebook post.
"He passed away peacefully at home with his parents and family at his side," Paul O'Donnell announced on the Save Baby Joseph Facebook page.
"Praise God he had seven precious months with his family to be surrounded by love and was not put to death at the hands of doctors."
Baby Joseph suffered from a progressive neurological disease which left him hospitalized through much of his life.
Earlier this year, doctors at London's Health Sciences Centre had determined he was in a permanent vegetative state and planned to take him off assisted breathing.
His family fought to have doctors perform a tracheotomy that would allow him to leave the hospital and die at home.
In February, an Ontario Superior Court decided the procedure would cause the child too much discomfort. The Maraaccli family decided to transfer Baby Joseph to a hospital in St. Louis, Mo., which performed the operation in March.
The child then returned to his home in Windsor, where he had been receiving care from his family and local nurses.
Joseph's father Moe Maraachli told CTV News earlier this year that he wanted his son to die naturally and peacefully.
