CHILD UNDER THE AGE OF 12 EUTHANASED IN THE NETHERLANDS

On Monday, 22nd June 2026, the government of the Netherlands confirmed for the first time ever the death of a patient under the age of 12 through deliberate, life-ending action taken by medical professionals. Reporting to the parliament, Minister Sophie Hermans officially confirmed the decision of euthanasia made for a patient between the ages of 1 and 12, in the Dutch government's 2025 annual report on purposeful medical terminations of human life.

The decision by the Dutch medical system to end the life of a patient under the age of 12, which marks the first known case of such occurrence since the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, was legally permitted through the 2024 changes to the model under which euthanasia procedures function in the Netherlands, which made it no longer a criminal offence for parents and registered doctors to cause premature death through medical means in terminally ill patients between the ages of 1 and 12.

According to the official English website of the Government of the Netherlands, in certain situations, [the doctor may decide, together with the parents, to terminate the child’s life. This decision is always made in consultation with the parents and, if possible, also with the child.]

In light of the unprecedented governmental approval for the life-ending procedure in a patient under the age of 12, proponents of euthanasia were quick to voice their apparent justification for the decision to purposefully end the life of the patient, portraying euthanasia as a choice of compassion and necessary to stop suffering in terminally ill patients.

Such supporters of deliberate terminations of human life often use emotive and charged language, and draw on anecdotes in an attempt to convince others to agree with their viewpoints. However, they often fail to do comprehensive research into the topic and rarely possess a full understanding of the medical procedures in ending the lives of terminally ill patients.

While uninformed activists proclaim euthanasia as a means of painless, dignified death, their logic does not take into account how artificially induced death works in reality. Different opinions are present within the medical community, but regardless of the type of lethal drug used to induce premature death in terminally ill patients, it can never be guaranteed that deaths through chemical injection will be painless or dignified. It is for the same reason that in the United States, opposition to the implementation of the death penalty through lethal injection is growing more and more prevalent, with widespread demand to end lethal injection as a lawful practice, even for perpetrators of heinous crimes, due to the suffering and lack of dignity involved in the medical process.

The fact that many supporters of death penalty reform push for the unconditional end of all lethal injections as a means of induced death, instead of pushing different drugs to administer the death penalty, is because no drug known to scientists can guarantee a painless and dignified death, whether in lethal injection, or euthanasia. Much less than eliminating suffering and the loss of dignity as supporters of euthanasia would claim, the inducing of premature death through lethal chemicals may be the source of grave suffering and loss of dignity in the final moments of a terminally ill patient's life.

The truth of the matter is, the only reliable way to ensure the comfort and dignity of a patient at the end of life is to invest in palliative care designed to eliminate pain and discomfort, and to make patients feel respected and cared for in the final chapter of their lives.

However, the ugly truth is that as providing quality palliative care cost more funding and effort than simply prematurely ending the lives of terminally ill patients through euthanasia, self-interested and entitled policymakers and managers of healthcare systems will do everything they can to avoid responsibility, with the help of activists ignorant of the facts.

With the precedent set by the government of the Netherlands in allowing doctors and parents to make decisions to end the lives of patients without valid consent, unless if supporters of human life and dignity do something, more and more child abuse and elder abuse will be perpetrated by impatient caregivers of terminally ill patients through pressure and deception which could not be easily monitored or reported.

Let us all remember that we can, and will, make our contribution by exposing, and eliminating the deliberate ending of human life.