Dame Esther Rantzen has been at the forefront of the assisted dying debate since revealing her own terminal cancer diagnosis in 2023
Dame Esther Rantzen’s daughter has begged MPs to give her dying mother ‘peace of mind’ as they prepare to vote on the assisted dying bill later today. Rebecca Wilcox, 45, said her 84-year-old mother, who has stage four lung cancer, will be watching and is ‘hopeful’ the new law will be passed.
MPs will debate the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – spearheaded by Labour’s Kim Leadbeater – for the first time since November’s yes vote. If it becomes law, it will allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales – with fewer than six months left to live – to apply for an assisted death.
In late 2023, Dame Esther revealed her terminal cancer diagnosis and expressed her wish to end her own life at Swiss assisted dying clinic Dignitas – where the practice is legal – if things got too much. A message reportedly sent to MPs by Dame Esther ahead of today’s debate said that changing the law would allow terminally ill people like her “not to shorten their lives, but shorten their deaths”.
She has since been taking what her family described as a ‘wonder drug’. But her daughter shared the drug has now appeared to have stopped working and Dame Esther is too unwell to travel. Though the law will be passed ‘too late’ for her own mum to end her life legally should she want to, her family are hopeful ‘she may have enabled it to happen for other people’.
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Rebecca told the Express: “She’s going to be watching the debate and is very interested to see how it turns out, and hopeful. Mum has been indomitable her whole life, this shouldn’t have to be her campaign. She should have peace of mind, she should know that whatever happens, she has a choice at the end of her life. That is not going to happen for her. The only bright spot in that for us is that she may have enabled it to happen for other people. And I’m going to keep going for as long as it takes.”
The TV host, who is a broadcaster like her mother and regularly appears on shows like Watchdog, admitted she was ‘living in a place of absolute denial’ about her mother’s illness, but said she found comfort that ‘something good’ could still come from all of their campaigning.
Praising her mother’s previous work with various charities and setting up children’s helpline Childline, Rebecca said her mum’s legacy was ‘already clad in platinum’, but helping to legalise assisted dying would be ‘another diamond on top of it.’
She added: “She has never stopped working for people she feels need to be listened to and voices that need to be heard. This is a brilliant campaign. I can’t describe the bravery and strength, power and beauty of the people that I have met, who have lost loved ones or who are facing a terminal diagnosis themselves. Their strength and courage — if we can bring a voice to that then we have done our job.”
As the historic vote takes place today, campaigners for and against assisted dying are expected to be watching the debate from the public gallery of the House of Commons. Among them will be Louise Shackleton, who took her husband Anthony, 59, who had motor neurone disease, to Diginitas in Switzerland to die in December. Louise, 58, from North Yorkshire, is now being investigated by the police.
Explaining her stance on it, told The Mirror: “We as human beings need to treat humans as well as we treat animals. If I was to have kept a dog the way that I was going to be expected to keep my husband, I would have been arrested, I would be prosecuted, I would be put in prison and I would be banned from keeping an animal again. But yet my husband was expected to suffer more than any other animal.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who voted in favour of assisted dying during the first Commons vote last year, signalled he still backed a change in the law. It is thought he will vote that way again after he said: “From my own experience in this field – I dealt with it when I was the chief prosecutor – is that I do understand there are different views, strongly held views on both sides that have to be respected. My views have been consistent throughout.”
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