Two-Year-Old Child Euthanized in First Case of Its Kind in Netherlands
A government review said the child had severe disabilities and brain damage, and doctors and parents found no reasonable way to ease the suffering.
- On December 31, 2025, a nearly 24-month-old child became the first minor euthanized under the Netherlands' 2024 law expansion after medical professionals determined severe brain damage and seizures caused intolerable suffering.
- The 2024 legislation permits assisted dying for children aged 1 to 12 when suffering is unbearable with no prospect of improvement, requiring physicians to fulfill a six-point statutory 'due care' checklist.
- Assessing the case, the Committee for Late-Term Abortion and Termination of Life in Newborns and Children concluded the physician acted with 'due care,' prompting the Public Prosecution Service to decline criminal charges.
- Cardinal Wim Eijk, president of the Dutch bishops' conference, criticized the procedure, stating that mercy is 'often used nowadays to justify ethically questionable actions,' sparking broader public debate.
- Belgium, which allowed pediatric euthanasia in 2014, remains the only other nation permitting such procedures, while this Dutch case establishes a legal precedent for applying strict medical safeguards to rare terminal scenarios.
95 Articles
95 Articles
The child on whom the special arrangement for terminating the life of terminally ill children aged one to 12 was first used in the Netherlands was one year old. He was born very prematurely and was later diagnosed with extensive brain damage, severe cerebral palsy and a severe form of epilepsy. After reviewing the case, a special commission found that the doctor acted in accordance with the required standards of care.
Last year, the youngest person to die after euthanasia in the Netherlands was a child who was only one year old.
The FIRST incurably ill child euthanized in the Netherlands, since the assisted death law was extended to children in 2024, was only a year old.
The Dutch Public Prosecutor decided not to sue the doctor who, at the end of 2025, performed euthanasia in a child of almost 2 years seriously ill. The decision took place after an evaluation committee concluded, in early September, that the professional had acted carefully. It was the first case in which the regulation created in 2024, which allows euthanasia for children between 1 and 12 years in certain circumstances, was effectively applied.…
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