"On God's Time"

It's pretty hard to understand what motivates people like Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader of Windsor. They are, without doubt, horribly emotionally distressed. Their lives have been anguished by the death of a daughter eight years ago, from a rare and dreadful neurological illness. That is the kind of trauma that no one wishes to befall even those whom they detest.

So having undergone that miserable and unforgettable trauma, it is fairly amazing that they decided to have another child. Having done so, it might have been prudent to try to determine whether their new child in utero had any possibility of also being diagnosed with that dreadfully unforgiving neurological disorder.

As things turned out their baby, Joseph, was suffering from the same vicious ailment that had brought his sister to an early death. There is no possible medical intervention. The infant, nine months of age, is rapidly deteriorating. His parents had rushed him to hospital, where he has been under the care of dedicated doctors since October 2010.

The baby has not long to live. He is on life support, as his life drains away. His distraught parents are now undergoing the second such intolerable event in their lives.

And the father has conceived of the idea of having his son discharged from hospital. He wishes to take the child back home with him, so he can die with his parents, in his home. He has demanded that the doctors at the London Health Sciences Centre perform a tracheotomy; insert an apparatus that will allow Joseph to breathe on his own.

So that he can be returned home, where, he has informed the news media, he can then die "on God's time". That kind of physical intervention, according to the doctors - an operation to cut a hole in the baby's throat and install a device to enable him to breathe on his own - is "invasive", and "not indicated for baby Joseph because he has a progressive neurodegenerative disease that is fatal".

The parents of Joseph who is dying, refuse to accept this, and insist that the doctors heed their wishes. And Mr. Maraachli has set out on achieving a public relations campaign through the media to enlist public opinion to his side. As a result, the hospital has revealed that it and some of its doctors have received threatening telephone calls.

And to counteract what they see as an attack against their professional integrity, represented by slanderous statements made by father Moe Maraachli, they are launching their own public relations campaign as push-back to the misleading information released by Mr. Maraachli.

"The threats are being taken seriously and have come by email and phone and have been passed along to the police. The health and safety of our patients, our staff and our physicians are our top priority." The hospital is also considering taking legal action against the claims harming its doctors' reputations and theirs.

If the parents of this baby - so dreadfully abused by its genetic inheritance somehow gone awry - are attempting to salve their grief by creating a situation where they are to be seen as victims of a system they are attempting to blame for their pending loss, they are clearly out of control.

Their own subliminal sense of responsibility for poor decision-making has been twisted to find blame elsewhere than with themselves.