A Canadian family has been left heartbroken and angry after a 26-year-old diabetic and blind man died of ‘physician-assisted suicide’ – three years after they blocked his request for euthanasia.
Margaret Marsilla had been successfully able to prevent her son Kiano Vafaeian from dying under Canada‘s Medical Assistance in Dying program back in 2022.
She noted that Vafaeian did not suffer from any terminal illnesses. He was just blind and struggling with complications from type 1 diabetes as well as mental health issues.
Years later, though, on December 30, 2025, Vafaeian was granted a physician assisted suicide under Canadian law – which states only that patients must show they have an ‘intolerable’ condition that cannot ‘be relieved under conditions that they consider acceptable.’
‘Four years ago, here in Ontario, we were able to stop his euthanasia and get him some help,’ Marsilla posted on Facebook in the aftermath.
‘He was alive because people stepped in when he was vulnerable – not capable of making a final, irreversible decision.’
She went on to call her son’s physician-assisted death ‘disgusting on every level.’
‘And I promise I will fight tooth and nail for my son and other parents who too have children that suffer from mental illness,’ Marsilla wrote. ‘No parent should ever have to bury their child because a system – and a doctor – chose death over care, help or love.’
Kiano Vafaeian, 26, died of physician assisted suicide on December 30 under Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program
His family has been left heartbroken by the news, as they argue that Vafaeian did not have any terminal illness
Canada legalized assisted dying in 2016, initially limited to terminally ill adults whose deaths were reasonably foreseeable.
But eligibility was expanded in 2021 to include people with chronic illness, disability, and soon – pending a parliamentary review – those with certain mental health conditions.
The country now has one of the highest rates of medically assisted deaths in the world, 5.1 percent, or a total of 16,499 deaths in 2024, the latest year for which there is data.
The fastest-growing category in Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) statistics is now not a specific illness but a catch-all labeled ‘other.’
MAiD deaths in that category nearly doubled to 4,255 in 2023 from a year earlier, amounting to 28 percent of all assisted suicide deaths, Sonu Gaind, a University of Toronto psychiatry professor found, according to the Free Press.
It is in that category that Vafaeian’s death falls.
His mother has explained that Vafaeian got into a bad car accident when he was just 17 years old. He then never went to college and moved quite a few times, from living with his dad to his mom, then his aunt, the Western Standard reports.
The tipping point then came in April 2022 when he went blind in one eye.
The 26 year old was blind and suffering from complications from diabetes, as well as mental health issues
That September is when he first tried to die of medically assisted suicide, even scheduling a time, date and location for the procedure in Toronto.
But his plan was foiled when his mother accidentally found the email confirming the appointment and called the doctor, pretending to be a woman seeking MAiD.
She recorded the conversation she had with the doctor and sent the tape to a reporter, after which the doctor postponed Vafaeian’s scheduled procedure, then said he wasn’t going through with it.
When Vafaeian later found out what had happened, he was furious at his mother, saying she had violated his right as an adult to choose death, the Free Press reports.
But Trudo Lemmens, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Toronto, who met Vafaeian in 2022 said his mother saved his life.
‘The only reason that Kiano was alive when I met him is because his mother had the guts to go public, not because of the medical community that would’ve ended his life,’ he said.
He then recounted how he thought Vafaeian’s plan was ‘dystopian.’
His mother, Margaret Marsilla, said he seemed to be faring better in recent months
In the years since, Marsilla said she thought her relationship with her son was on the mend, as she set him up this past September with a fully-furnished condominium near her office in Toronto with a live-in caregiver.
Marsilla also drafted a written agreement promising Vafaeian $4,000 a month in financial support, and he talked to her about moving into the condo before the winter.
He even texted his mother at one point, saying he was ‘looking forward to a new chapter,’ as he asked for her help to pay down his debts.
He said he was trying to save money so that they could travel together, but then flew to New York City to buy a pair of newly-released Meta Ray-Ban sunglasses, which some have praised as a breakthrough technology for those who are blind.
Marsilla told the Free Press she was uneasy about him traveling alone, but he texted her photos and videos of him with his new sunglasses.
At one point, Vafaeian admitted he was afraid the new technology would not help him and was worried he had wasted his mother’s money.
‘God has sealed a great pair for you,’ she then responded.
‘I know God protects me,’ he wrote back.
By October, Marsilla bought Vafaeian a gym membership and 30 personal training sessions, all of which he used.
‘He was so happy that he was working out and getting healthy,’ Marsilla said.
Canada now has one of the highest rates of medically assisted deaths in the world
Soon, though, he walked away from all of it, as his mother said ‘something snapped in his head.’
Vafaeian checked himself into a luxury resort in Mexico on December 15, sharing photos of himself posing with resort staff, before he checked out after just two nights and flew to Vancouver.
Three days later, he texted his mother saying he was scheduled to die from physician assisted suicide the following day.
He then told his sister, Victoria, that if any family member wanted to be there for his final moments, they should catch the last flight out of Toronto.
‘We were obviously freaking out,’ Marsilla said, recounting how she criticized her son for ‘throwing this on us now – right before Christmas’ and asking him, ‘What’s wrong with you?’
Vafaeian then responded that he had asked for security to be present if his family showed up to the facility in Vancouver to try to stop him.
But Marsilla said she took it as a sign her son was wavering about his decision to end his life, becoming more encouraged when Vafaeian told her the next day that his assisted suicide had been postponed due to ‘paperwork.’
At that point, Marsilla said she urged him to return home to Toronto, offering to buy him a plane ticket and telling him he had Christmas gifts waiting for him.
‘No I’m staying here,’ he responded. ‘I’m going to get euthanized.’
It was Dr Ellen Wiebe (pictured) who ultimately performed the procedure on Vafaeian on December 30
It was Dr Ellen Wiebe who ultimately performed the procedure.
She dedicates half of her medical practice to MAiD and the other half to abortion, contraception care and delivering newborns.
‘I’ve brought more than 1,000 babies into the world and … I have helped more than 500 patients die,’ she told the Free Press with a laugh.
Wiebe then described assisted suicide as the ‘best work I’ve ever done.’
‘I have a very strong, passionate desire for human rights,’ she explained. ‘I’m willing to take risks for human rights as I do for abortion.’
When she was then asked how she determines whether a patient is eligible for MAiD, she said they ‘have long, fascinating conversations about what makes their life worth living – and now you make the decision when it’s been enough.’
But shortly before he died, Vafaeian went to a law firm in Vancouver to sign his will, where he reportedly told the executioner he wanted the ‘world to know his story’ and to advocate that ‘young people with severe unrelenting pain and blindness should be able to access MAiD’ just as terminally ill patients can.
Vafaeian’s death certificate now says his assisted suicide was based on the ‘antecedent causes’ of blindness, severe peripheral neuropathy (damage to the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord that causes pain and numbness) and diabetes.
An online obituary for the 26 year old now remembers him as a ‘cherished son and brother, whose presence meant more than words can express to those who knew and loved him.’
It said that in lieu of flowers, the family was requesting donations be made to organizations supporting diabetes care, vision loss and mental illness in Vafaeian’s name.
