Netherlands: a child of nearly two euthanised, a first case

A Dutch review committee has reported that a physician put to death a child of nearly twenty-four months. It is, in that country, the first known case of euthanasia of a child under twelve. Born prematurely at twenty-six weeks, the child suffered from cerebral palsy, severe visual impairment, drug-resistant epileptic seizures, breathing difficulties from a build-up of mucus in the lungs, and repeated septic infections. The killing, carried out at the end of 2025, was performed by administering progressively increasing doses of a coma-inducing agent, until sedation.

The committee concluded that the physician “acted in accordance with the prescribed protocols and with the requisite care.” Its report holds that “every facet of the human being, in terms of motor function, behaviour and personality, was gravely affected, and that there would be no improvement.” The Netherlands legalised euthanasia in 2002; two years ago the framework was extended to gravely ill children aged one to twelve, the act having previously been available only to newborns and to those over twelve.

The physicians consulted during the assessment did not agree on the suffering. A second opinion judged that “there was no continuous unbearable suffering” and that “the epilepsy was accompanied by significant discomfort, but that the seizures were not continuous.” A third concluded, on the contrary, that “there was no reasonable means of reducing or eliminating the suffering other than by ending the life.” On the very fact that, under this law, licenses killing, the experts did not agree.

What tradition has always taught

The fifth commandment knows no exception of age, infirmity or condition. “Thou shalt not kill,” says Exodus; and again: “The innocent and just person thou shalt not put to death: because I abhor the wicked.” The Catechism of the Council of Trent draws the rule from it without detour: “Prohibition to kill whomsoever it be! The Law extends to all. There is no one, whatever be the lowliness of his condition, who is not protected by it.” No one, it adds, has “power enough over his own life” to dispose of it; still less does anyone have that power over the life of another, and least of all over the life of a child who can ask for nothing.

The measure

The child put to death was innocent. None of the infirmities described removes him from the protection of the Law. The Catechism teaches, on the contrary, that it is “forbidden in Genesis to kill man, because God created him to His image and His likeness,” and that homicide makes “His image disappear from the midst of the world.” The committee judged that “every facet of the human being” was “gravely affected”: this is precisely the reasoning that tradition condemns, for the image of God is measured neither by motor function, nor by behaviour, nor by personality, and a diminished life remains a life that no one has the right to suppress.

That the physicians were divided on the reality of the suffering only aggravates the case: a child was put to death on a fact that the experts themselves did not hold as established. Finally the Catechism does not reserve the fault to the hand alone that kills; it is “forbidden to contribute thereto by one’s counsels, by one’s means, by one’s help or in any manner whatsoever.” A protocol, a second opinion, a legal framework change nothing in the nature of the act: it is the homicide of the innocent, which neither the authority of a physician nor that of a law can render licit.

What the faithful must take from it

A human law that permits the killing of the innocent does not bind the conscience; it can neither found a right nor efface a crime. The duty of the Christian is neither revolt nor despair, but firmness in what the Church has always held: the life of the innocent, however broken, is entrusted to God alone, and the care owed to the suffering is to relieve them and accompany them, never to suppress them. We pray for this child and for all those whom the same logic threatens.

Sources. Exodus XX, 13 and XXIII, 7 (Douay-Rheims Bible, 1582/1610). Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the fifth commandment “Thou shalt not kill.”