EVEN improved palliative care would not stop legal assisted suicide being a threat to the disabled and people in poverty, a disability rights campaigner warned today.

Ipsos polling this week found 34 per cent of the public feel assisted dying should only be legalised if accompanied by additional investment in end-of-life care. 

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has suggested he believes improved palliative care should come before any move to legalise assisted suicide. The issue returns to the Commons this week.

Thirty per cent of respondents felt assisted dying should be legalised regardless.

But Linda Burnip of Disabled People Against Cuts told the Morning Star that “what is happening with assisted dying in Canada and other places it is legal is actually terrifying.

“If you’re homeless you don’t get offered a home you get offered euthanasia,” she said, referring to a 2024 expert committee report into the Medical Assistance in Dying programme in Canada, which found social issues including fear of isolation and homelessness had been among the grounds submitted by patients who successfully applied for assisted deaths.