Netherlands: euthanising a disabled child is not “merciful”

In the Netherlands, a boy born very prematurely, at twenty-six weeks, suffering from brain damage, cerebral palsy, epileptic seizures and impaired sight, was euthanised at the end of 2025. It is the first time a child aged one to twelve has been put to death this way in the country; until now only two cases had been recorded, both in Belgium. An oversight commission concluded that the doctor "had acted with due diligence." Cardinal Wim Eijk, president of the Dutch bishops' conference and a physician by training, condemned the act and rejected the word used to dress it.

In 2024, the Netherlands adopted a regulation permitting the euthanasia of minors under twelve. Yet independent consulting physicians, asked for a second opinion, had judged that the child was not suffering continuously and unbearably, and that reasonable avenues remained: palliative care, other treatments for the seizures. Some practitioners refused to carry out the act; others, willing, were found. The child, whose developmental age was about six weeks, was not dying. His parents chose to have him put to death.

"The word 'merciful' is today often used to justify ethically dubious acts," said the cardinal, who had devoted his doctoral thesis to Dutch euthanasia. "Is it merciful to violate the fundamental dignity of the human person by ending their life?" What is truly merciful, he added, is to give adequate care — here, palliative care — and, where that does not suffice to bring the suffering down to a bearable level, palliative sedation.

What the fifth commandment teaches

"Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13). The Catechism of the Council of Trent, expounding this precept, distinguishes the murder of the innocent man, always forbidden, from the lawful sword of the authority that strikes the guilty. The direct killing of an innocent admits no exception: neither age, nor infirmity, nor compassion, nor the consent of another can make it licit. Pius XI, in Casti Connubii, recalled that the life of the innocent is inviolable, and that no authority, not even a public one, has the power to destroy it, not even when that life is judged useless or burdensome.

The measure

Euthanasia is the direct killing of an innocent: here, a child who was not dying, of whom the consultants themselves said that he did not suffer continuously and unbearably and that care remained to be given him. Calling it "mercy" changes nothing in the act: the word dresses the homicide, it does not transform it. An intrinsically evil act never becomes good by the intention that inspires it. The administrative formula, by which the doctor "acted with due diligence," judges only the procedure; it does not touch the one question that counts before God: an innocent was put to death. On this point the cardinal, in setting palliative care against death inflicted, says nothing other than the constant tradition of the Church: one relieves the one who suffers, one does not suppress the one who suffers.

For the faithful

The life of the innocent belongs neither to the State, nor to the doctor, nor even to the parents: it is a gift of God, and its end belongs to Him. The infirm child, the dying man, the old man without strength are no less men, nor less loved by God, than the one in good health. We must beware of the word "mercy" when it is detached from the moral law: true mercy cares, watches, accompanies, and never kills. Faced with a law that permits the killing of the littlest, the Christian's duty is neither revolt nor despair, but to hold the faith as the Church has always taught it, and to support the care that honours life to its natural end.

Sources. Exodus 20:13 (Vulgate / Douay-Rheims). Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the fifth commandment. Pius XI, encyclical Casti Connubii (1930), on the inviolability of innocent life.