The Netherlands has recorded its first reported life-ending procedure involving a child under the age of 12 since expanding its euthanasia regulations in 2024, a development that has renewed ethical concerns among Catholic and pro-life advocates about the growing reach of assisted-dying laws.
According to the Dutch governmentÊŒs 2025 annual report on late-term pregnancy termination and life-ending procedures, authorities received a report in late 2025 involving a child between the ages of 1 and 12. The case is the first known report since the Netherlands broadened its regulations to permit euthanasia for children in that age group under limited circumstances.
Dutch Health Minister Sophie Hermans confirmed in a June 22 letter to the Dutch House of Representatives, âAt the end of 2025, the committee received its first report of life termination of a child between the ages of 1 and 12 years.â
Few details about the childÊŒs age, illness, or circumstances have been released. Under Dutch law, all such cases are reviewed by an independent committee to determine whether legal requirements were followed.
A medical-legal committee reviewed the death, evaluated it, and forwarded an advisory opinion to prosecutors who must independently decide next steps, Hermansâ letter said. The committee is expected to publish its opinion on its website.
Expansion of Dutch euthanasia policy
The Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia for adults in 2002. Before the 2024 expansion, euthanasia was already permitted for infants under one year old in exceptional circumstances and for minors aged 12 and older, subject to parental consent requirements.
Dutch officials said the regulations were designed to address a small number of cases involving terminally ill children experiencing what authorities describe as âhopeless and unbearable suffering.â
Under the rules, euthanasia for children ages 1 to 12 may be permitted when a child is terminally ill, suffering unbearably with no prospect of improvement, and when no reasonable treatment or palliative care alternative exists.
The 2025 report recorded three late-term pregnancy terminations, no reported life-ending procedures involving newborns, and one reported life-ending procedure involving a child between the ages of 1 and 12.
Catholic bioethicists raise concerns
The reported case of the child under 12 has drawn criticism from Catholic and pro-life advocates, who argue that societyÊŒs response to suffering should be compassionate care and effective pain management rather than intentionally ending a human life.
âThis is clearly a grave ethical violation,â said Joseph Meaney, senior fellow and director of international coordination at the National Catholic Bioethics Center. âThe Church teaches that euthanasia and assisted suicide are intrinsically evil and so can never be morally justified actions. The case of euthanizing children is graver still since a child cannot give informed consent.â
Meaney said that while euthanasia may appear compassionate in cases of severe suffering, âit is a grave mistake,â emphasizing that âhuman persons have a special dignityâ and that modern medicine offers ethical means of pain management and care for the seriously ill and dying.
He also warned that the Netherlands has often served as a bellwether for euthanasia policy worldwide.
âExpanding the limits of what is allowed by the law in terms of medicalized killing usually happens first in the Netherlands and then spreads to other countries,â Meaney said.
International implications
The case comes amid ongoing debates over assisted dying in several Western nations.
Meaney warned that jurisdictions often begin by legalizing euthanasia in limited circumstances before gradually broadening eligibility.
âAfter a few years of legalization, advocates push for limitations to be removed or the categories of persons with permission to be killed or kill themselves to be enlarged,â he said.
Matt ValliĂšre, executive director of the Patient Rights Action Fund, expressed similar concerns.
âThe further that they push the envelope, the more other countries will consider it, especially in the Euro-American West,â ValliĂšre said. âCurrently, bills are pending in France, the UK, and Scotland.â
He also pointed to developments in the United States.
âYou see some of this going back and forth from here to the states, too. There are 12 states plus D.C. that have officially legalized assisted suicide,â he said.
The report comes as euthanasia continues to rise in the Netherlands. More than 10,000 euthanasia deaths were reported in the Netherlands in 2025, accounting for a growing share of annual deaths in the country.
The Netherlands remains one of only a handful of countries that permit euthanasia for minors. Belgium removed age restrictions on euthanasia in 2014, while assisted-dying proposals continue to be debated in several Western nations.