Esther Rantzen urges MPs to back ‘strong, safe’ assisted dying bill in vote

Esther Rantzen asked MPs to vote ‘for future generations to have the right, if necessary, not to shorten their lives, but to shorten their deaths’. Photograph: Esther Rantzen/PA

Esther Rantzen has urged all MPs to back Kim Leadbeater’s “strong, safe, carefully considered bill” to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales, which faces its next Commons test on Friday.

In an impassioned letter, the broadcaster, who has stage-four lung cancer, said she and other terminally ill adults asked MPs to allow “a good, pain-free death for ourselves and those we love and care for”.