"Baby Joseph" was mere hours from being pulled from life support at a Canadian hospital in March, when he was rescued to the US by Priests for Life. The parents wanted to ensure their child got whatever life-extended care they could, but since the Canadian government pays the bills, they get to call the shots, and the courts backed them up.

Joseph was moved to St. Louis where doctors at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital performed the tracheotomy that would allow him to breath without the respirator, and thus move back home to Windsor, Ontario.

His condition was always terminal, but he lived until Tuesday and died at home.

There is no doubt that keeping him alive cost money, and the Canadian government is correct that it would have been cheaper to just take him off the respirator in March and let him die. No doubt at all. But is that any way to make medical decisions? More specifically, is that any way for a disinterested 3rd party to make medical decisions for someone else? When you turn control over to the national government, that’s the only way decisions get made.

Related posts:

  1. Death Panels in the UK
  2. The Canadian Health Care Plan: Looking More Like the American One
  3. Religious Freedom, Canadian Style
  4. A Thorn By Any Other Name

Filed under: Government • Medicine

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