The Netherlands is euthanizing children.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Kevin Yuill was published by Spiked on June 28, 2026 concerning the expansion of euthanasia in the Netherlands to now allow children to be euthanized.

Article: Child euthanasia confirmed in the Netherlands (Read).

Yuill, who is emeritus professor of history at the University of Sunderland and CEO of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia explains:

For the first time in the history of the Netherlands, a child has been euthanised by the state. The Dutch health minister revealed this week that Sophie Hermans, a child under the age of 12, was given a lethal injection in late 2025.

This case follows another relaxation of the safeguards on euthanasia in the Netherlands. In 2002, the Dutch decriminalised euthanasia and assisted suicide for competent adults. The law expanded to cover 16- and 17-year-olds, with parental consultation, and 12- to 15-year-olds with parental consent. In 2023, another change in the law allowed children under the age of 12, according to Dutch MP Harry Bevers, to ‘die with dignity’ if there is no possibility of recovery and they faced unbearable pain and distress.

The Netherlands didn't technically change their euthanasia law but rather they extended the Groningen Protocol, which allowed euthanasia of newborns, to include children under the age of 12. Yuill continued:

Euthanasia in the Netherlands is officially only permitted if the request comes from the patient and if a doctor agrees that they are suffering unbearably. But how can a minor request something a child cannot possibly comprehend – namely, the end of his or her life? How can a young child understand the need to maintain his or her dignity? The age of consent for sex is 16 in the Netherlands, and those below the age of 18 cannot legally get married. The Dutch government advises that children under the age of 15 should not use social media. And yet, Dutch children now have the ‘right’ to request a lethal injection.

In fact, the Netherlands appears to be moving relentlessly and thoughtlessly towards a euthanasia model employed in Europe in the 1930s. Then, euthanasia proposals began as requests from patients. However, when Nazi Germany began its euthanasia programme in 1939, the ‘patients’ were generally children with physical and intellectual disabilities. They did not consent – let alone request – euthanasia.

Yuill states that doctors in the Netherlands are not the same as doctors in Nazi Germany, nonetheless child euthanasia suggests that some lives are not worth living.

Yuill shares some of the crazy euthanasia stories from the Netherlands and then states:

Similarly, the expansion of euthanasia to children was motivated – in the words of then health minister Ernst Kuipers – by the hope it would ‘end the “dilemma for doctors” to administer euthanasia to young children who can’t decide for themselves’. The voluntary part of ‘voluntary’ euthanasia seems to have disappeared.

Yuill explains that most Canadians were unaware that Canada had planned to expand euthanasia to mental illness alone in March 2027.

Yuill ends the article by stating:

All of this is why we in the UK must look very critically at the legislation recently brought forward by Labour MP Lauren Edwards. The bill – which supporters will not allow to be amended – is not safe in its current form. Indeed, that is why there were 1,200 amendments tabled when it was first introduced by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater. And the experience of every jurisdiction where euthanasia is legal would tell us that it would only get worse.

Belgium expanded euthanasia to children in February 2014.

In February 2023 a Canadian parliamentary committee decided that Canada should expand euthanasia to children (mature minors).

Euthanasia, once legal, always expands.