Canadians and their Assisted Suicide Problem: Next Year, ‘Mature’ Minors Can Elect for Government Provided Euthanasia

The story of a Twenty-Three Year Old Male Who Scheduled ‘Medical Suicide’ After Diabetes Diagnosis

It's a shocking subtitle to see that such a young male wants to end his own life and has asked for the Government's assistance to do so. But, can you imagine how his mother felt? After all, his mother is the reason for this article because she found out after her son had been approved for "medical assistance in dying," aka MAiD, aka assisted suicide.

According to his mother, Margaret Marsilla, her son, Kiano Vafaeian, was depressed, a diagnosed diabetic had lost his vision in one eye, and he didn't have a job or girlfriend or much of a future. Therefore, the Canadian Government's policy allowed this young man to apply to end his life. Kiano's death was scheduled for September 22nd. His mother found out in late July, leaving her just over a month to say goodbye to her son. On September 7th, she emailed the doctor who planned to medically and legally kill her son.

The doctor's response was, "Hii," he emailed. (Apparently, the doctor did not use spell check.) "I am confirming the following timing: Please arrive at 8:30 am. I will ask for the nurse at 8:45 am, and I will start the procedure at around 9:00 am. The procedure will be completed a few minutes after it starts." During the procedure, the doctor administers two drugs; a coma-inducing agent and a neuromuscular blocker to stop the individual from breathing.

“Marsilla was terrified. She had tried to do everything for her son, but it had been rough for him. She and his dad had gotten divorced when Kiano was still a kid. On his sixteenth birthday, she gave him a BMW. When he was 17, he was in a bad car accident. He wasn't up to college. He smoked a ton of weed. He'd lived with his dad, then with his mom, and now with her sister, Kiano's aunt. Wherever he went, whatever he did—he was unhappy. Finally, going blind in his left eye this past April was the tipping point."

Marsilla, decided she would find out about the process and called Dr. Tepper, the one who would be killing her son; she pretended to be a MAiD applicant. She called herself Joann and said she "wanted to go through the whole process in general, from A to Z, before the Christmas holidays—if you know what I mean." Tepper indicated he understood.

Tepper stated, "You have to be over 18. You have to have an OHIP card." (He was referring to her Ontario Health Insurance Plan.) "You have to have suffering that cannot be remediated or treated in some way that's acceptable to you."

Unbeknownst to Tepper, Marsilla recorded the conversation and shared it with the journal Common Sense. Marsilla told Tepper that she was experiencing similar symptoms to that of her son, and he responded; "(I've) had patients a lot similar to you." Then he said, "If you wanted, I could do a formal assessment with you." Marsilla asked if she should come in. Tepper replied: "We do them remotely, often by video of some type: WhatsApp, Zoom, FaceTime, something like that."

Marsilla hung up. What is going on in Canada?

MAiD has been in operation since 2017; the active legislation has accounted for 31,664 deaths in Canada. The number of young people 18-45 who have applied for such has increased year over year. However, the focal point of the increase is squarely on the clause 'reasonably foreseeable'. In 2021, the legislation was amended to remove the 'reasonably foreseeable' portion; thus, the number of persons eligible to partake rose. This second track of applicants simply had to show that they had a condition that was "intolerable to them" and could not "be relieved under conditions that they consider acceptable." This included applicants like Margaret Marsilla's son, Kiano.

However, the worst is yet to come, next year the Canadian Government is set to adopt an even more lax approach; "Next March, the government is scheduled to expand the pool of eligible suicide-seekers to include the mentally ill and "mature minors." According to Canada's Department of Justice, parents are generally "entitled to make treatment decisions on their children's behalf. The mature minor doctrine, however, allows children deemed sufficiently mature to make their own treatment decisions." (The Federal Government does not define "mature," nor does it specify who determines whether one is mature. On top of that, the doctrine varies from one province to another.)"

The reach to children is astoundingly reprehensible; children who are 'mature' can mean cognitive enough to speak, it could mean children as young as 13, it could mean at any age; as long as the children are 'mature,' these children could decide to euthanize themselves.

Dr. Dawn Davies, a palliative care physician who supported MAiD when it was first conceived, said she had "tons of worries" about where this might lead. For example, she could imagine kids with personality disorders or other mental health issues saying they wanted to die. "Some of them will mean it; some of them won't," she said. "And we won't necessarily be able to discern who is who."

Assisted suicide is in and of itself a flawed approach to medicine, yet the Canadian Government has found a way to make the process far worse, opening the doors to 'mature' minors.

Update: After further research into the MAID program in Canada - the reality is that children "at least 12 years of age and capable of making decisions with respect to their health." Can elect to take part in the MAID program. However, Dying with Dignity Canada requests that there be safeguards in place; "DWDC recommends that the informed consent of a competent parent or guardian be required for eligible minors seeking MAID who are 12 to 15 years of age inclusive, and that MAID assessors be required to consult a competent parent or guardian for eligible minors aged 16 and 17.

Regardless, we can conclude that parents and guardians of said children of a particular ideological slant will undoubtedly take part because culture tells them too. As is the case with transgenderism and abortion. We are seeing a rise in transgenderism and the administration of puberty blockers to minors in the United States and Canada because of modern culture. What is on TV, in schools, and on social media is having a drastic impact on our children. At twelve years old, children have immense pressure to learn the world around them, which places a high level of vulnerability to instances of depression and other mental developmental experiences. However, in conjunction with another disease, these children may not see 20 because of the MAID program.