Nola Leach, the Chief Executive of Christian advocacy group CARE, has called for more investment in palliative care as an alternative to assisted suicide. 

Writing in The House, Ms Leach said that legalising assisted suicide would create a society in which "people who think they are a burden effectively abdicate the protection they should rightly enjoy".

She admitted that palliative care "may not always seem like an easy or perfect answer", and that it was in some cases "sub-standard", but she added that "its importance cannot be overstated" as she called for more funding to ensure quality of care across the board.

"We must invest in strengthening the nature of our society by raising the level of palliative care and resist all efforts towards facilitating the death of the vulnerable among us," she said. 

Ms Leach went on to warn that there would be "very extensive costs to society of not only making death a policy option, but actively validating a vulnerable person's desire to kill themselves".

"Assisted suicide abandons vulnerable people to their death, rather than valuing their life; we must invest in strengthening the nature of our society by raising the level of palliative care and resist all efforts towards facilitating the death of the vulnerable among us," she said. 

Her warning comes after respected Dutch ethicist Professor Theo Boer told parliamentarians that the law permitting assisted suicide in the Netherlands has expanded far beyond what was originally intended. 

He said assisted suicide had become the "default way to die" in the Netherlands.