Excerpt:
The doctor who performed the Netherlands’ first case of euthanasia on a child under 12 did so with due care, the supervising committee concluded after investigating. The patient, a child of nearly 2 years who suffered from several severe medical conditions, died at the end of 2025.
In that case I must apologize. I misinterpreted what you meant with that erosion. I also shouldn’t have written it as a quote as I initially did, since it was paraphrasing and not a direct quote. I didn’t mean to misrepresent.
That still doesn’t change the rest of my argument, however.
That’s fair. We differ in opinion on that, and I can see where you are coming from.
My issue with that, however, is that we then end up in a situation again where this child needs to spend ten years in whatever pain and agony they might be going through, just because they legally cannot make the decision by themselves.
Preferably that should not be happening, and giving the parents the ability to decide on their behalf is in my view an acceptable compromise to prevent that suffering from happening. While it is a decision with a lot more weight, we already do give parents a lot of power to make decisions for their child in other situations, so it is not entirely without precedent.
I think this is a ridiculous take. The Netherlands cannot be held responsible for what it didn’t do itself.
Thank you.
Yes, and this is why I say that helping families and children as much as possible is important. If it costs 30 million to support a child, so be it. How the weakest members of a society are treated indicates the over all health of a society.
I think you can’t view things in isolation. Lawmakers are acutely aware of the reception of their actions abroad.