A severely disabled two-year-old child was euthanized in the Netherlands under the country’s expanded euthanasia laws.
A medical review committee determined that the physician “acted with due care.” The Netherlands Public Prosecution Service will determine whether the physician acted within the bounds of the law.
Rumors that a child in the Netherlands was euthanized by medical professionals circulated online in September 2026.
People on social media and YouTube claimed the country had recently allowed physicians to terminate the life of a 2-year-old disabled child. One user posted on X, “My heart hurts for the broken world in which we live that has so abandoned its humanity.”
The controversial nature of the claim and the ongoing debate over reproductive rights in the United States led many Snopes readers to reach out via email asking us to verify the story.
Euthanasie of a 2years old baby in the Netherlands: disabled now can be killed and they say it’s human not to tet live disabled and kill them without even give thm the possibility to make an own informed decision when they are an adult.: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE TO THE NAZIS?!! https://t.co/Wp2eiNlW1g
— KaiTraudvetter (@traudvette8137) September 18, 2026
The claim was true.
A review committee made of four physicians, one lawyer and one ethicist, formed by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and the Ministry of Justice and Security, described its duty in the 2025 annual report (translated from Dutch to English by DeepL):
The committee assesses whether a physician acted with due care in cases of late-term abortion or the termination of life in a newborn or a child between the ages of 1 and 12. In 2025, the Commission received three reports of late pregnancy terminations. No reports of end-of-life care for newborns were received in 2025. At the end of 2025, the Commission received its first report of end-of-life care for a child between the ages of 1 and 12. The committee meets every two months and will address this report at its first meeting of 2026.
The committee’s judgment for the case in question — available to read on their website — determined the physician who administered the euthanasia “acted with due care.”
According to the committee, “due care” is based on the premise that the physician must “arrive at the conviction, on the basis of prevailing medical insight, that euthanasia is the only reasonable solution to alleviate the child’s hopeless and unbearable suffering.”
Dutch law
According to the government of the Netherlands, “euthanasia (termination of life on request) and assisted suicide are criminal offences” with the only exception being “when the procedure is performed by a physician who has satisfied six statutory due care criteria.”
The criteria say the physician must:
- be satisfied that the patient’s request is voluntary and well considered.
- be satisfied that the patient’s suffering is unbearable, with no prospect of improvement.
- have informed the patient about their situation and their prognosis.
- have come to the conclusion, together with the patient, that there is no reasonable alternative in the patient’s situation.
- have consulted at least one other, independent physician, who must see the patient and give a written opinion on whether the due care criteria set out in (1) to (4) have been fulfilled.
- have exercised due medical care and attention in terminating the patient’s life or assisting in the patient’s suicide.
In October 2024, the euthanasia law was expanded to include children age 1 to 12. The case in question was the first time the expanded law was put into practice.
The government’s website about termination of life for children ages 1 to 12 states:
Termination of life is only allowed if a child is terminally ill and is suffering unbearably with no prospect of improvement. This means the child is in constant, severe pain. And that there is no cure, and no reasonable alternative to relieve the child’s suffering, even through palliative care.
In this situation, the doctor may decide, together with the parents, to terminate the child’s life. This decision is always made in consultation with the parents and, if possible, also with the child.
While the committee found the physician to be acting within the parameters of the stated criteria, the next part of the process requires them to send the details of the case and their review to the Public Prosecution Service, which then determines whether the doctor acted within the bounds of the law.
We reached out to the office of Sophie Hermans, the minister of health, welfare and sport, who first announced the case to the Dutch Parliament in June 2026, for an update on its legal status and will update this article if we get a response.
Details of the case
According to the committee’s report on the case in question, the child’s condition included being born prematurely at 26 weeks, which caused sepsis.
Over the following months the child suffered extensive brain damage, cerebral visual impairment and severe epilepsy, as well as lack of verbal and cerebral visual development.
The review said that “the child had multiple, very severe disabilities, both mental and physical, and the prognosis was that the child would be dependent on support with all activities of daily living for the rest of their life.”
The report continued that because the child was incapable of communicating, “the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment options were discussed extensively with the parents” who ultimately decided to ask the physician to end their child’s life.
Other consulted physicians said there were proposed alternatives, such as palliative care, but “the parents were of the opinion that the proposed treatments would only prolong the child’s suffering.”
In the end, the procedure began “by administering increasing doses of midazolam and morphine through an IV cannula,” and then “administered coma-inducing substances (propofol and thiopental), after which the child reached a state of very deep sedation, and died.”
