The Netherlands – which previously allowed euthanasia for infants under the age of one, as well as consenting minors (ages 12-15) – expanded euthanasia to children aged 1 through 12 back in 2024. In September this year, officials declared that the country’s first case of euthanasia for a child aged between 1 and 12 was done with “due care.”
The child was murdered by doctors a year ago, at the end of 2025. His death was then reviewed by a supervising committee which has now concluded its investigation and shared that the child was 2 years old, had been born prematurely and had suffered brain damage, leaving the child restless and unable to sleep for long periods. The child also had impaired vision, cerebral palsy, seizures, and struggled with breathing and swallowing. Doctor determined that the child’s suffering could not be alleviated through medical treatment. Together with the parents, they agreed to kill the child.
Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, noted that this development reminded him of the first recorded child euthanasia death, on July 24, 1939. Adolf Hitler received a letter from Richard Kretschmar, about Kretschmar’s child Gerhard, who was born blind with a missing leg and a missing part of his arm. Hitler proceeded to send a doctor to the child, instructing him that if the letter was correct, he could euthanize the child in Hitler’s name. Sure enough, Gerhard was killed. Schadenberg explained:
“History indicates that the German T4 euthanasia program, that followed, began with parental request for euthanasia and in the end resulted in the deaths of, at least, 250,000 to 275,000 people with disabilities. Further to that, the technique in killing large numbers of people by gas was first developed in the psychiatric hospitals for the euthanasia program and later installed in the death camps for killing millions of people.”
A Parliamentary committee in Canada tabled a report in 2023 calling for an expansion of state-approved homicide, including “mature minors.”
As ARPA Canada explained to Parliament and the Supreme Court of Canada when it was considering allowing euthanasia, once the sacred line of the Sixth Commandment is abandoned, it becomes impossible to hold any sort of line in place. After all, if it is a compassionate medical treatment to kill a one-year-old, how can we deny such a “treatment” to the parents of a two-year-old?