COMMUNIST Party delegates warned assisted suicide legislation currently proceeding through Parliament “targets rather than protects the most vulnerable at a time when they are already disproportionately affected by cuts in health, social care, housing and education as well as economic inequality.”

The party’s biennial congress saw an emotional debate on the controversial topic, accommodating in principle a call to “support disabled people and their organisations, including Disabled People Against Cuts, in opposing the [disability] cuts and assisted suicide.”

Speakers discussed the context of a war on welfare, an underfunded NHS and “the prevailing narrative [that] now presents disabled people as a burden on society,” as well as the “mission creep” of such legislation which has loosened criteria over time in countries such as Canada and the Netherlands. 

But some who argued assisted dying should not be ruled unacceptable in all circumstances, because of the extreme suffering caused by particular conditions, swayed congress to stop short of taking a position against assisted suicide in principle, while it endorsed continued resistance to Kim Leadbeater MP’s Bill.