Six professors of child and adolescent psychiatry are urging colleagues to hold off on granting euthanasia requests from young people with severe mental illness until they are around 25, arguing that the adolescent brain is still developing and that conditions which seem hopeless in early adulthood often shift over time.

Writing in the Dutch psychiatry journal Tijdschrift voor Psychiatrie, the authors call their proposal a “not now” approach.

They stop short of demanding a fixed age cut-off, but argue that euthanasia is “usually inappropriate” until at least young adulthood, citing brain development, susceptibility to peer influence and social media, and the fact that treatments which fail today may work later. The death wish, they say, must remain open for discussion throughout that period.

The Dutch psychiatric association NVvP is currently revising its guideline on euthanasia for psychiatric suffering, and four members of that working group co-signed the new proposal.

Psychiatrist Kit Vanmechelen, who has carried out euthanasia on young people herself, told the Volkskrant the move looked like an attempt to influence the working group’s process.

Vanmechelen called it “inappropriate”, warning that many psychiatrists would now “hide behind this advice” and that suicides among under-25s could rise as a result. The dispute has been ongoing for more than a year.

Marcel Mennen, chairman of the KEA Foundation, which supports people seeking euthanasia for psychiatric reasons and whose own daughter died by suicide at 31, called the approach paternalistic and said it was reasoned entirely from the perspective of the profession rather than patients.

Existing guidelines already require extra caution with young patients, he said, adding that a 22-year-old may already have suffered severely for a decade.

In absolute terms the cases are rare. Eight people under 25 received euthanasia for psychiatric suffering in 2023, 13 in 2024 and seven in 2025. By contrast, there were more than 10,000 euthanasia cases each year overall, the vast majority involving cancer or other physical illness.

Requests to the Expertise Centre for Euthanasia from under-24s have nonetheless climbed sharply, from 10 in 2012 to 74 in 2020. Concern has been sharpened by the fact that suicides among young women under 30 hit a record high in 2024.

Law unchanged

Whatever the NVvP eventually decides, the law itself will not change: euthanasia for unbearable and hopeless suffering remains legal from the age of 12.

In June last year, MPs voted down two motions that would have imposed a three-year moratorium on euthanasia for under-30s with psychiatric conditions, after family doctors organisation KNMG and the NVvP jointly warned that a hard age limit would shut down conversation with vulnerable patients rather than protect them.

Anyone struggling with suicidal thoughts can contact prevention line 113 on 0800-0113 or via 113.nl.