A sobering milestone has been reached in the Netherlands. A government review committee that examines termination-of-life requests has published a report documenting what appears to be the first case of a child euthanized under a Dutch law that took effect in 2024, which permits the euthanasia of children between the ages of 1 and 11 whose medical needs are deemed to be "without prospect of improvement."

The child was a toddler with severe epilepsy and profound disabilities. According to the committee's report, the reasons given for ending the child's life included that there was "no verbal development at all," that "only minimal communication was possible," and that the prognosis was lifelong dependence on support for all activities of daily living. The report further stated that "every facet of 'being human' ... was severely affected."

The story was reported in the press and taken up this week by writer Kayla Craig in a reflection published by Christianity Today. Craig writes not as a distant observer but as the mother of a daughter, Eliza, who lives with a similar diagnosis — severe epilepsy, significant cognitive and physical disability — and who, she says, "defied odds and began walking at 8 years old." This spring her family will watch Eliza cross the stage at her fifth-grade graduation.

"We don't know the fullness of the child who died or the exact agony these parents felt," Craig writes, extending compassion toward the grieving parents even as she presses the deeper question: does needing lifelong support make a life less human?

Her answer is no, and it rests on Scripture. The apostle Paul declares that the parts of the body "which seem to be weaker are necessary" (1 Corinthians 12:22), and that honor belongs especially to those the world deems least important. A person's worth, Craig argues, is not measured by developmental milestones or the ability to communicate — it is anchored in the image of God, which every human being bears from the first breath.

The Dutch committee's language — a life ended because it showed "no prospect of improvement" — should stop the church in its tracks. It is the logic of usefulness applied to human beings: that a life must earn its keep by developing, improving, contributing. Scripture teaches the opposite. We do not improve ourselves into children of God; we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), known by name by the One who formed us in the womb.

Craig's reflection also bears witness to something the church does best: showing up. She describes worship spaces where children and adults with disabilities are not merely welcomed but wanted, neighbors offering respite care, a paraprofessional believing her daughter would one day walk across a graduation stage. "This is what the people of Christ have done — and still do," she writes. Compassion, in the biblical sense, is not the ending of a life but the bearing of one another's burdens (Galatians 6:2).

The Netherlands' experiment will be watched around the world, and other nations are having the same debate. The church's voice in this moment matters: every child, whatever the diagnosis, is made in the image of God, and God knows the name the medical report never listed.

Source: Christianity Today. Read the original article.