Dame Esther Rantzen is considering the option of assisted dying if her lung cancer treatment does not improve her condition.
The beloved journalist, TV producer and campaigner was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer in January. She did not expect to live past her 83rd birthday in June, let alone live to see Christmas this year.
Speaking to an episode of The Today Podcast by BBC Sounds, she announced that she has become a member of Dignitas, the Swiss nonprofit organisation offering physician-assisted suicide to those suffering with a terminal illness.
The Jewish broadcaster said her next scan in a few weeks' time will tell her "whether the miracle drug is performing its miracle or whether it's given up".”
She added: “I have in my brain thought, if the next scan says nothing is working, I might buzz off to Zurich.
“But it puts my family and friends in a difficult position because they would want to go with me, and that means that the police might prosecute them.
“So we’ve got to do something. At the moment it’s not really working, is it?”
Dame Esther added: “I don’t want their last memories of me to be painful because if you watch someone you love having a bad death, that memory obliterates all the happy times, and I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to be that sort of victim in their lives.”
She continued: “I thought I’d fall off my perch within a couple of months, if not weeks.
“I’ve got to drop off my perch for some reason, and I’m 83, damn it, so I should be jolly grateful. And indeed I am. "We’ve all got to leave this world, have we not?"
Esther Rantzen (Photo: Getty Images)
Dame Esther also called for a free vote on assisted dying, saying “it is important that the law catches up with what the country wants.”
Assisted suicide is currently banned in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, carrying a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
According to Dignity in Dying, a national campaign for assisted dying in the UK, a British person travels to Dignitas for assisted suicide every eight days.
The House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee launched an inquiry into assisted dying in December 2022 and is due to publish a report of its findings in due course.
Dame Esther came to fame for hosting the current events and entertainment TV programme That’s Life! from 1973 to 1994, reaching audiences of over 15 million and blazing the way for women in media.
A long-time campaigner, Dame Esther founded the children’s charity Childline in 1986 and established The Silver Line in 2013, a charity to support elderly people suffering from loneliness. She was recognised for her charitable efforts when she was made a dame in 2015.
Dame Prue Leith of the Great British Bake Off has also been an ardent campaigner for assisted suicide since witnessing the painful death of her brother David from bone cancer in 2012.
In May, she wrote an open letter to Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Ed Davey, calling on party leaders to recognise public support for reforming the UK’s law on assisted dying.
The letter expressed that, “Some people’s suffering is beyond the reach of even the best palliative care” and cited the statistic that, for each passing day, 17 people are suffering as they die.
