At what point can one say that a culture has definitively metamorphosed into another? Is it the moment long-held values and traditions are overturned or once the effect of that overturning has had time to work on the population? Does anyone even notice the seismic shift taking place?
As regards the last question, at least, the answer appears to be no, they do not. That is testified to by the apparent lack of domestic reaction in the Netherlands to the announcement that a 12-year-old child had been euthanized, or killed in other words, in the country for the first time.
Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported that Health Minister Sophie Hermans notified parliament of the case, letting the country’s legislators know that the report had been forwarded late last year to a special committee established to examine this particular form of euthanasia.
The Euthanizing of Children
Widely regarded as a “progressive” country, euthanasia has been legal in the Netherlands since 2002. Since then, as in other jurisdictions, the grounds have expanded considerably. In 2024, euthanasia for children between the ages of one and 12 was made available, provided the child is “terminally ill and is suffering unbearably with no prospect of improvement”.
Despite the fact that it is notoriously difficult to accurately forecast these things, especially in light of so grave and final a decision as euthanasia, the Dutch state has nevertheless empowered parents and doctors to end such children’s lives.
“In this situation, the doctor may decide, together with the parents, to terminate the child’s life”, the state webpage reads, adding that “this decision is always made in consultation with the parents and, if possible, also with the child”.
“If possible”. The child’s agreement is not required, so long as the doctor is satisfied that it is not happening contrary to the child’s will.
But what suffering child is likely to disagree with their parents under these circumstances?
At the bottom of the page containing that information is a link to another state page about “termination of life newborn infants and late-term abortion”, further solidifying the thesis that widespread moral collapse becomes banal to the point of invisibility once it has set in.
Hermans stated in her letter that the review committee had examined the euthanization of the child and spoken with the doctor involved, and that the committee’s judgment had been forwarded to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM). The OM is understood to be in the process of deciding whether or not the doctor complied with the letter of the law.
Nothing more is known about the killing of the child, other than that they are the first to die this way, at the state’s hand, and unlikely to be the last. When the law was formulated, it was estimated that there would not be more than five such cases per year, a prediction that has so far held true.
But if anything is certain with euthanasia and assisted suicide regimes, it is that such regimes do not take long to expand beyond their original scope.
A Cautionary Canadian Tale
Canada provides a stark example of this, progressing rapidly from requiring that the person’s death be “reasonably foreseeable” to be eligible for the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) scheme, as was required when it was introduced in 2016. The reasonably foreseeable requirement was removed for many patients just a few years later, however, resulting in two “tracks” for MAiD that have significantly broadened the scope.
Which is how the country has reached the grim milestone of 100,000 MAiD deaths since its legalization in 2016, now accounting for 5% of all deaths per year in Canada. That figure is sure to grow, with such developments in the pipeline as MAiD for those “suffering solely from a mental illness” from March 17, 2027.
Regardless of these screaming warnings, no small number of countries plough ahead with their plans for euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The UK’s “assisted dying” bill has perversely come back from the dead, in spite of a total lack of widespread interest in prioritizing its introduction. That is not stopping a determined progressive element, though, from backing it to the hilt, threatening to use the Parliament Acts to ram it through, to widespread dismay.
England was not like that previously. Canada was not like that, either. Nor was the Netherlands.
The culture changed while no one was paying any attention, and now countries are killing sick 12-year-olds rather than caring for them to the very end, difficult as that is for all involved.
Out with the old, the young and the vulnerable. In with the deadly, callous new.