Esther Rantzen: We want right to choose to shorten deaths, not lives

The Childline founder, who is terminally ill, said the current law on assisted dying is ‘cruel’.

Dame Esther Rantzen is terminally ill and has been a strong voice in the debate on assisted dying (Kirsty O’Connor/PA) (PA Archive)

Assisted dying can be “carefully legalised”, Dame Esther Rantzen has said as she urged people to write to their MP as proposed legislation is brought before the Commons for the first time in almost a decade.

The Childline founder said she is writing to her own representative in Parliament to make her case for a change in the law, telling her story of terminal illness and a wish to have a choice over the end of her life.

Dame Esther, who has stage four lung cancer, has been outspoken on the issue since revealing last December that she had joined Dignitas due to her fears around a drawn-out, painful death.

Explain this is a life and death issue and all we are asking is the right to choose, not to shorten our lives, but to shorten our deaths. Your words may just make the difference

Dame Esther Rantzen

On the eve of Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s bill coming before the Commons, Dame Esther urged people to make their feelings known to their MPs, who will likely have a first vote on the issue at the end of November.

She said: “Please write to your MP and explain your reasons why this time they should vote for change and assisted dying should be carefully legalised.

“Tell them your story. I am writing to mine. Explain this is a life and death issue and all we are asking is the right to choose, not to shorten our lives, but to shorten our deaths.

“Your words may just make the difference. If so, thanks to you we may all, for the first time, be able to look forward with hope and confidence to a good death.”

The 84-year-old former broadcaster said she had been left “deeply disappointed” in the words of the Archbishop of Westminster who, voicing his opposition to a change in the law, said suffering “is an intrinsic part of our human journey”.

In the letter to be read out in the churches of his diocese, Cardinal Vincent Nichols said: “He (God) brings our humanity to its full glory precisely through the gateway of suffering and death.”

Dame Esther said: “The Archbishop himself is guided by the faith he has personally chosen. But surely that does not mean he should impose his faith on those who do not share it.”

Cardinal Nichols also warned that changing the law could result in those who are near to death feeling pressured to end their lives to relieve family members of a “perceived burden of care”, to avoid pain or “for the sake of inheritance” – an argument made by many others opposed to a law change.

But Dame Esther said the current law is “cruel”.

The former presenter said she had been contacted by a woman whose father-in-law had died by suicide having lived with “terrible pain” as he battled leukaemia.

Dame Esther said the woman wrote: “Why did he not have the choice of a pain-free death surrounded by those he loved? It’s so wrong. We treat animals better.”

Voicing her agreement, Dame Esther wrote: “I have stage four cancer and have signed up to Dignitas, because that means I can go to Zurich and opt for a legally assisted death there if my life becomes unbearable.

“Sadly, the criminal law in this country means patients like me have to go alone and die alone to protect our families from being investigated by the police. So going alone to die in Switzerland is the only legal choice left to me.”

She argued that “no matter how good palliative care is, it cannot always guarantee a good, pain free death” and said legalising assisted dying for the terminally ill could “save their families and loved ones from a last memory of an agonising death”.

Many of those opposed to a change in the law have said the focus should be on improvements to end of life care rather than on changing the law to allow assisted dying.