The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, and now the nation has set another grim record, becoming the second to euthanize a minor child under 12. Previously Belgium permitted the euthanasia of two children aged 9 and 11. The two nations are the only ones in the world where it is legal to euthanize minor children.
The news came from an annual report from the committee that reviews all late-term abortions and medically assisted deaths of children, which Health Minister Sophie Hermans presented to the Dutch parliament on Monday June 22.
In the letter, Hermans revealed that a child with "severe illness" died from euthanasia at the end of 2025, Dutch News reports. The report did not include any personal details about the child or his or her medical condition.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide have been legal in the Netherlands since April 1, 2002, when the country's Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide Act officially took effect. In 2024, the law was extended to allow children under the age of 12 to be euthanized if the child is “terminally ill and is suffering unbearably with no prospect of improvement,” with the following guidelines:
In the case of a child under 12, their parents must give their consent once the doctor has established that there is no treatment available for their condition… The doctor will involve the child, insofar as they are capable, in the decision and must be satisfied that the child’s life is not being ended against their will.
The nation previously had legalized neonatal euthanasia in 2007.
The death has been referred to the public prosecution service, as is the case with all euthanasia cases in the Netherlands. The service will decide if the doctors complied with the so-called strict rules that protect them from being charged with unlawful killing.
The idea that a minor child -- who cannot legally vote, buy alcohol, or in many cases, hold a job -- can be deemed capable of choosing to end his own life raises serious questions.
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Netherlands and other pro-life advocates have spoken out about the “slippery slope” of continuing to expand the criteria for assisted suicide. In a 2017 interview, Cardinal Willem Eijk of Utrecht said:
The Dutch bishops' conference has warned from the beginning against violating the intrinsic dignity of human life through euthanasia or assisted suicide, because it is never ever allowable to violate intrinsic values, and because in doing so you put yourself on a slippery slope… Was it not naive, when [this] started in the 1990s, to suppose that ending life for psychiatric disorders would remain limited to a few cases only?
His warning back in 2017 against “ending life without consent” certainly seems prescient as now a minor child, incapable of full consent, lost their life to euthanasia.
