Parents drop fight to treat baby with cannabis
Severely ill 5-month-old is now breathing on her own, raising hope she’s improving
VANCOUVER— Parents of a severely ill baby girl in British Columbia have dropped a court action seeking greater control of her care, including the right to treat her with cannabis oil.
Michelle Arnold and Justin Pierce withdrew their application to share custody of their 5-month-old daughter with B.C.’s Ministry of Children and Family Development on Wednesday.
The parents’ lawyer, Erin Haupt, said Mary Jane Pierce has been breathing on her own without a ventilator for two weeks and the parents are hopeful they can bring her home some day.
The ministry obtained a temporary custody order in August and Haupt said the province is still planning to make the order permanent.
But she said the protection hearing won’t probably be held for several weeks, allowing the parents time to show they can be good caregivers to Mary Jane.
The family’s court battle began in August when the ministry moved to remove the baby’s ventilator and place her in palliative care.
Arnold and Pierce, who live in Chilliwack, B.C., won a temporary injunction to keep their daughter on life support. At a subsequent hearing, the ministry agreed not to take the infant off the machine without the couple’s consent.
Penny Washington, a lawyer for B.C. Women’s Hospital, told the court last month that the cannabis oil did nothing to alleviate the girl’s seizures and might have increased them.
She said the extensive medical treatments were taking a toll on Mary Jane, who has cerebral palsy and suffers bleeding in her brain.
“In my view, it’s becoming inconsis- tent with human dignity,” she said.
But Haupt said on Wednesday the girl has made remarkable progress in the past two weeks. She still needs some support to breathe, but no longer requires the ventilator.
“The parents are very excited that she is getting better and better, and they want to show that they can be parents, so that’s how we’re proceeding,” she said.
“It’s fantastic, given a couple weeks ago we never thought we’d be in this position. They are very, very hopeful that she will at some point be able to be discharged.”
Arnold and Pierce have also said they will not give up their fight to gain full custody of their daughter and to treat her with cannabis oil, despite dropping the court action that sought greater control of her care.