Esther Rantzen, whose terminal cancer diagnosis led her to campaign for the legalisation of assisted dying, has issued an impassioned plea to MPs to vote this week on a “vital life-and-death issue”.
The television personality told MPs “my time is running out” but the issue was one “the public care desperately about” and said it might not be debated by MPs “for another decade” if the legislation did not pass.
Rantzen, who has stage 4 lung cancer, revealed almost a year ago that she wanted to be able to die at a time of her own choosing surrounded by loved ones, galvanising a national debate about assisted dying.
In the first Westminster vote on the issue in nearly 10 years, MPs will decide on Friday whether England and Wales should join other jurisdictions including 10 US states, New Zealand, Canada, six countries in Europe and most of Australia in legalising assisted dying.
Scotland, the Isle of Man and Jersey are expected to legislate for change in the next couple of years.
MPs at Westminster have been given a free vote on the issue, meaning they can vote according to conscience. The outcome is unpredictable, with many MPs undecided or undeclared.
In her letter to all 650 MPs, Rantzen urges them to listen to Friday’s debate and to vote, whatever their view. “This is such a vital life-and-death issue, one that we the public care desperately about, so it is only right that as many MPs as possible listen to the arguments for and against and make up your own minds, according to your own conscience, your personal thoughts and feelings.”
She adds: “This bill will never apply to me as I have stage 4 lung cancer and my time is running out. But I am fortunate to have the choice of an assisted death in Dignitas in Switzerland.”
Rantzen points out that she may have to travel to Zurich alone in order to protect her family from prosecution, and that many terminally ill Britons cannot afford the £15,000 required for an assisted death at Dignitas.
Many more terminally ill people are forced to suffer against their wishes despite the best care, or to take matters into their own hands at home, she says.
“I have received so many messages from people who have been traumatised by having to experience their loved ones’ suffering,” she adds. “This will probably not come before parliament as an issue to debate for another decade. How many more will be forced to suffer until then?”
Her letter highlights key evidence from a parliamentary committee’s 14-month inquiry that concluded assisted dying had not damaged palliative care where it was legal, and that in many jurisdictions it had strengthened it.
She tells MPs that the “tragic truth” is that even with the best possible palliative care, some terminally ill people continue to suffer.
Rantzen will not attend Friday’s debate in person but her daughter Rebecca Wilcox will be in the public gallery on her behalf.
Wilcox told the Guardian that her mother was still being treated for her cancer. “There’s no news, which for us is good news. But we don’t know when the drug will stop working, and when it does things will move apace,” she said.
“Having cancer is tiring, having treatment is tiring, talking about cancer is tiring, and campaigning for assisted dying is tiring. So on Friday, I’ll go for her and report back.”
Asked if Rantzen was proud of having triggered a national debate on assisted dying that arguably has led to Friday’s vote, Wilcox said her mother would “completely refute” the question.
“She would say this debate and this campaign was long in the making, and so many people have worked so hard for decades, that her accidental conversation with the Today programme about a year ago was not the catalyst. But I have heard that things have felt different this time, and the thing that is different is that she came out and said it.
“Mum is brave and brilliant and has put this conversation front and centre of many people’s minds. But there have been so many brilliant, brave people, like Dame Diana Rigg and Nicholas Dimbleby, who have been public about their suffering and how awful their end was, and how dignity was completely missing from the end of their lives.”
Rantzen had been in contact with “so many brilliant families and relatives of people that have experienced trauma”, Wilcox said. “They are looking down the barrel of a terrible diagnosis and are just hoping for the vote to go their way so that there’s more compassion and more empathy in the law.”
Sarah Wootton, the chief executive of Dignity in Dying, which campaigns for a change in the law, said: “Esther has called this her final campaign, and she has undoubtedly helped drive the need for change up the political agenda. The fight for greater choice at the end of life is a fitting addition to her legacy of campaigning for people’s rights.
“Parliament has a historic opportunity to end the injustice of the ban on assisted dying and introduce new protections for dying people and for us all. People who want and need choice as they die, loved ones who have witnessed the devastation caused when choice is denied, and the British public are united in calling on MPs to vote for compassion, for protection, for dignity.”
