A disabled 2-year-old child has been euthanized in the Netherlands, even though the toddler was not dying. But that didn’t stop Dutch officials from confirming that everything was done legally.
A Dutch review committee has concluded that a doctor acted with due care in the country’s first euthanasia of a child under 12: a nearly 2-year-old with severe disabilities whose life was ended late last year.
The child was almost 24 months old and could not communicate. The child did not — and could not — ask to die.
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The doctor and the parents decided to actively end the child’s life after concluding that the supposed suffering could not be relieved, according to the Assessment Committee for Late-Term Abortion and Termination of Life in Newborns and Children Ages 1 to 12.
The child was born premature, at 26 weeks of gestation and a month after the earliest premature babies have survived, and supposedly suffered severe brain damage. That damage left the child with severe cerebral palsy, a visual impairment, and frequent epileptic seizures that were largely unresponsive to medication.
The child was restless, often unable to sleep for long periods, and had mucus in the lungs that made breathing and swallowing very difficult. The committee’s ruling said the child’s developmental age was estimated at six weeks when the child was nearly 2 years old.
“All facets of ‘being human’ — regarding motor skills, behavior, and personality — were severely impaired and were not going to improve,” the committee said in its defense of the euthanasia. “Despite all medical and non-medical interventions, the parents and the doctor observed no improvement in the child’s condition and were convinced that the child was suffering unbearably and without prospect of relief.”
The committee said the doctor made the right assessment and “strictly adhered to all due-care requirements.”
The Public Prosecution Service will now review the case.
The Netherlands changed its rules in 2024 to allow doctors to end the lives of children between 1 and 12 under strict conditions, including reportedly hopeless and unbearable suffering, no other reasonable solution, and assessment by at least one independent physician. Officials expected the practice to be used no more than five times a year. This is the first and only reported case.
Eduard Verhagen, a professor of pediatric palliative care at UMCG in Groningen, told RTL Nieuws that the committee’s ruling would guide future cases.
“It is good that the committee reached such a well-considered judgment. Many physicians and parents will benefit from this in the future,” he said. Euthanasia, he added, remains “a difficult decision: difficult medically, but also emotionally.”
The committee’s approval does not change what happened. A disabled toddler is dead because adults concluded that the child’s impairments and suffering justified ending his or her life.
