Dame Esther Rantzen used one of her final messages to urge assisted dying campaigners to keep going, saying the current law had left her without choice at the end of her life. 
The broadcaster, Childline founder and campaigner, had spoken openly about assisted dying after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. In a message shared by her family after her death, she said she had been “deprived of any choice over my own death” and had become too frail to travel to Switzerland.
She thanked those who had worked hard to change the law and urged campaigners to “battle on”.
Clare Turner, who is herself living with a terminal illness, previously worked as a children and adolescent counsellor and saw first-hand the difference Childline made to young people. She said:
“Esther spent so much of her life helping other people. When I worked as a children and adolescent counsellor, I heard first-hand from young people what Childline had meant to them.
She was an intelligent, kind person who had given so much to others. It feels deeply unfair that, at the end of her own life, she could not be afforded the same compassion and choice.
I have brilliant palliative care myself, and I am incredibly grateful for it. But I still want the choice to shorten the very end of my life so that I don’t have to take matters into my own hands. I don’t want to have to die alone.
Good palliative care matters enormously, but for some of us, it does not remove the need for choice.”
Although Esther spoke warmly of the care she received, her support for assisted dying was never about rejecting palliative care. For her, as with so many terminally ill people, having the choice and agency to end intolerable suffering would have provided peace of mind.
That choice was not available to her.
Esther spent decades campaigning for other people. Through Childline and The Silver Line, she used her public profile to speak up for people who were frightened, isolated or unheard. In the final years of her life, she did the same again on assisted dying.
She knew the law was unlikely to change in time for her, but she kept speaking because she wanted things to be different for others.
My Death, My Decision will continue campaigning for a law that gives mentally competent adults facing intolerable suffering from an incurable condition the right to make their own decisions about the end of their lives.
Esther’s final message was clear: keep going.
You can read more about Esther’s final message here.
Notes
Members of the MDMD team, as well as individuals affected by the current law on assisted dying, are available for interview upon request
For further comment or information, media should contact Kerry Hogan at kerry.hogan@mydeath-mydecision.org.uk or phone 07922363248. (media only)
Media can use the following press images and videos, as long as they are attributed to “My Death, My Decision”.
My Death, My Decision is a grassroots campaign group that wants the law in England and Wales to allow mentally competent adults who are terminally ill or intolerably suffering from an incurable condition the option of a legal, safe, and compassionate assisted death. With the support of over 3,000 members and supporters, we advocate for an evidence-based law that would balance individual choice alongside robust safeguards and finally give the people of England and Wales choice at the end of their lives.
