A Dutch review committee has determined that the euthanasia of a severely disabled toddler was within the confines of the country’s recently expanded regulations on medically assisted suicide.
In 2002, the Netherlands passed the Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide Act, allowing assisted suicide for individuals over the age of 12 if they are suffering from an illness or disability with no hope of recovery. In 2004, doctors were permitted to end the lives of infants under the age of one if they determined that the baby was suffering or expected to suffer in the future. However, the disability or illness did not need to be fatal.
The country has since expanded the guidelines, allowing since 2024 children up to the age of 12 to be euthanized if the parents agree.
Last year, a child was the first to be euthanized under this expansion after being born prematurely at 26 weeks while the parents were on vacation. The child was initially treated in a neonatal intensive care unit and was transferred to a Netherlands hospital at four months old.
Doctors subsequently discovered extensive brain damage, including periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), which is associated with cerebral palsy. At eight months old, the child was diagnosed with a form of epilepsy.
By the time the child was nearly two years old, doctors estimated a developmental age of just six weeks. The child had no verbal development and was visually impaired.
Despite the child’s condition not being fatal, the parents requested their child be euthanized after a doctor determined the suffering was “hopeless.” In compliance with the law, the parents sought a second opinion. However, those doctors disagreed with the assessment and found that there was no continuous unbearable suffering and that reasonable alternative solutions existed, according to a report by the NL Times.
The parents then sought a third opinion, where a doctor concluded that the suffering could not be reduced. As a result, the child was euthanized.
The committee that reviewed the case determined that the situation was “handled well.” It found that the doctors’ decisions were in compliance with the required guidelines.
The decision has drawn attention from euthanasia critics and pro-life activists, who point out that at a time when countries are increasingly providing options of medically assisted suicide for patients, children who succumb to euthanasia cannot consent to that decision.
“This case is a truly disturbing example of the problem with euthanasia. This child was not dying; he or she was disabled. Yet, based on a misguided sense of compassion, multiple individuals concluded that the child's life was not worth living,” said a report published by the pro-life group Live Action. “Determining that a person is suffering in order to end that person's life is completely subjective, as was seen in the doctors' varied evaluations. There is a danger when the able-bodied can arbitrarily determine worth and quality of life for those they feel are suffering or may suffer in the future.”
