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.
Well the child was so severely disabled and had such severe brain damage, that he could never, ever in his life, consent to anything in the first place.
His entire existence was hell. Drowning in his own lungs just trying to breathe, constant seizures with no treatment, an underdeveloped brain that couldn’t even form thought but only feel pain.
There’s truly no good answer here. On one hand, you are indeed ending a human life.
On the other hand, that life was nothing but a hell you couldn’t even imagine, 24/7. His entire life had zero joy in it. Ever. And no matter how long it lasted, it never would.
Prior to modern medicine, the answer would have been to leave the poor baby out on a hill and let the wolves eat it. Or just watch him die slowly and in pain because there’s nothing you can do.
The only “wrong” answer is to unnaturally keep him alive, in pain and suffering 24/7, just because “human life”. Of all the options, euthanasia is by far the most humane. That baby was NEVER going to grow up and live any sort of semblance of a normal life. That baby was in extreme suffering every second of every day of his short life. Suffering you could never imagine.
People said that about me. I had developmental issues, by far not as bad as the child you are referring to, but bad enough to make doctors believe I had epilepsy. Potentially a progressive form.
Someone I knew in school had muscular dystrophy. My developmental difficulties persisted into my young teens and the one thing I remember him saying to me was “the Nazis would have killed us both.” Where he is right now, I could not know. He might not be alive anymore.
People would have said we were suffering, or be under some kind of pain, despite our lives being full of worthwhile moments. Adults tend to say things that make reality feel comprehensible. A defenceless child is the victim of the narcissistic adult who is unable think beyond their feelings and perception of reality. The narcissistic need to feel in control and competent borne from a society where it’s everyone against everyone.
It feels like a punch in the face. People making a show of the suffering or what they perceive to be suffering while at the same time not advocating for a morsel of assistance to disabled people. In fact, they would maintain that killing the disabled person is sufficient assistance. Inequality in healthcare, lacking support networks, ableism, all swept under the rug while crying “look at the suffering!”
You are dramatically downplaying the suffering of this baby though.
He was in constant agony. Constantly drowning in his own mucus. Severe seizures that would not respond to treatment. He was functionally blind, and also could barely move his own body due to the severe cerebral palsy.
Have you ever been close to drowning or waterboarded? It’s one of the worst feelings imaginable. It’s extremely painful to not be able to breathe, and you have a massive wave of primal fear from the feeling of death. And this baby was in that 24/7. He was also in severe pain because of the constant epileptic seizures. And trapped in a body that he couldn’t even move.
They didn’t just up and say “fuck it, kill him”. They tried for nearly two years, since birth, to do everything they could to medically help him. Nothing worked. The baby was living in hell. Constant extreme pain.
I feel for his parents. I can guarantee that it was a horrific decision they had to make. But at the end of the day, letting the baby they love continue to exist in pure constant agony with no hope of ever alleviating it, is far less humane.
Well, we’ll see how history will play out.