It is never ‘compassionate’ to murder a child

The Netherlands has crossed a grim threshold in the name of so-called progress, becoming the first nation to legally euthanize a child between the ages of one and twelve. The announcement came from Sophie Hermans, the country’s minister of health, welfare, and sport, confirming that a doctor had carried out what authorities euphemistically describe as “assisted death” for a terminally ill young patient.

According to Ian Haworth writing in Washington Examiner, this represents a predictable but nonetheless horrifying escalation in a culture that has steadily eroded respect for human life. The Dutch government legalized voluntary euthanasia in April 2002, making it the first country in the world to do so. In 2024, lawmakers expanded the law to include children.

Official Dutch government guidance on the termination of life for terminally ill children aged one to twelve states that physicians may end a child’s life when parents and doctors jointly determine there is no alternative. The criteria outlined include terminal illness accompanied by unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement, no available cure, and no reasonable alternative to relieve suffering even through palliative care.

The government’s protocol stipulates that such decisions are made in consultation with parents and, when possible, with the child. Yet the notion that a suffering child of twelve, let alone younger, possesses the emotional maturity to consent to their own death raises profound ethical questions.

Haworth acknowledges that the suffering of terminally ill children represents every parent’s worst nightmare. No one can witness a child in agony without feeling compelled to end that suffering. But he argues that suffering itself, while something society must work to alleviate, cannot justify government-sanctioned killing.

While some may advance arguments for strictly controlled assisted suicide for terminally ill adults based on emotional maturity and informed consent, those justifications collapse when applied to children. A twelve-year-old lacks the capacity to make such an irreversible decision, particularly when experiencing physical and psychological distress.

The columnist draws a direct line between abortion and pediatric euthanasia. Once a society rejects the principle that life begins at conception, he contends, no logical boundary exists to prevent the murder of children at any stage. If there is no moral difference between ending a life moments before birth and moments after, then arbitrary age limits become meaningless.

The fundamental question is whether life possesses inherent value. If it does, then relieving suffering must occur within the framework of absolute respect for that life. Opening the door to legal killing in the name of compassion, regardless of intent, demonstrates contempt for life itself and establishes a dangerous precedent for future abuses.

The Netherlands now stands as a cautionary example of where progressive ideology leads when severed from foundational moral principles. What began with adult euthanasia has inevitably progressed to the state-sanctioned killing of children, a line that should never have been approached, let alone crossed.

With information from Washington Examiner