Family left heartbroken after doctor euthanized man because he was diabetic and blind

A Canadian family has been left heartbroken and angry after a 26-year-old diabetic and blind man d!ed of ‘physician-assisted suicide’ three years after they previously stopped him from being euthanized.

In 2022, his mother, Margaret Marsilla, successfully intervened to prevent her son, Kiano Vafaeian, from accessing Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program.

Marsilla maintains that her son was not terminally ill, noting that he lived with blindness, complications from type 1 diabetes, and mental health challenges.

On December 30, 2025, Vafaeian was approved for physician-assisted suicide under Canadian law, which requires only that applicants demonstrate an “intolerable” condition that cannot “be relieved under conditions 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.’

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 certain mental health conditions.