LONDON, Ont. - Joseph Maraachli, the infant who became the centre of an international right-to-life controversy, died at his family's Windsor, Ont., home Wednesday.

The child was cared for at London Health Sciences Centre from October 2010 to March 2011.

Doctors at the hospital said the baby was in a vegetative state with no chance of recovery and sought his parents' consent to remove the breathing tube that kept him alive.

But the parents refused, and asked for a tracheotomy to be performed on Joseph so they could take him home. The doctors declined because they said it would be an unnecessary procedure that wouldn't help the baby.

Ontario's Consent and Capacity Board sided with the doctors and a London judge upheld the board's decision.

The parents then had Joseph transferred in March to Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis, Mo., where a tracheotomy was performed on him.

A Facebook page dedicated to the campaign, Save Baby Joseph, thanked the parents Moe and Sana Maraachli for "fighting for their son."

"So many others would have succumbed to the pressure by the doctors," the site says.