Dame Esther Rantzen reveals she is considering going to Dignitas if her lung cancer worsens: Childline founder, 83, says she doesn’t want family to see her have a ‘bad death’ which would ‘obliterate the happy times’ – and is awaiting scan results

• The broadcaster and journalist , 83, has called for a free vote on assisted dying

Earlier this month she announced she was leaving Childline after 37 years following her diagnosis with stage four lung cancer.

And now Dame Esther Rantzen has revealed that she has joined assisted-dying clinic Dignitas and will consider going there to end her life should her next scan show she is getting worse.

The broadcaster, 83, has called for a free vote on assisted dying as it’s ‘important that the law catches up with what the country wants’.

Dame Esther, who was diagnosed at the beginning of the year, said she will find out in a few weeks if a new medication she has been taking is ‘performing its miracle’ or if it has ‘given up’.

She added that if ‘nothing’s working’ she might ‘buzz off to Zurich’ in Switzerland but realises this would put her family and friends in a difficult position as they could be prosecuted should they decide to join her. ‘I have joined Dignitas,’ she announced on The Today Podcast hosted by presenters Nick Robinson and Amol Rajan.

Dame Esther Rantzen has revealed that she has joined assisted-dying clinic Dignitas and will consider going there to end her life should her next scan show she is getting worse

Dame Esther explained to her family that she didn’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’

‘I have in my brain though, well, if the next scan says nothing’s working I might buzz off to Zurich but, you know, 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.

Is Assisted Suicide illegal in Britain? 

Under the Suicide Act 1961, anyone helping or encouraging someone to take their own life in England or Wales can be prosecuted and jailed for up to 14 years if found guilty of an offence.

Section two of the act states that a person commits an offence if they carry out an act capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of another person, and the act was intended to encourage or assist suicide or an attempt at suicide.

In 2015 MPs including former prime minister David Cameron rejected a Bill to legalise assisted dying.

Opposition to changing the law has come from faith groups, campaigners who say disabled people may feel pressured to end their lives and campaigners who fear assisted dying would become a business.

‘So we’ve got to do something. At the moment, it’s not really working, is it?’

Dame Esther said that she had discussed the issue with her family and they had told her it was her ‘decision’ and ‘choice’.

She continued: ‘I explained to them that actually 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.’ 

The long-time presenter said that, if she was made prime minister for the week, she would ‘get them to do a free vote on assisted dying’.

She added: ‘I think it’s important that the law catches up with what the country wants.’

Dame Esther also told how she was looking forward to a ‘very unexpected’ Christmas with her family. ‘I didn’t think I would make it to my birthday [June 22],’ she admitted.

‘I definitely didn’t think I’d make it to this Christmas, which I am, it appears. Though anything can happen; I live in a forest, a tree can fall on me.

‘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 am.’ The mother-of-three and grandmother-of-five helped to set up Childline, which provides counselling to young people, in 1987. Her daughter Rebecca Wilcox, 43, is now training to join the charity.

In 2012, Dame Esther also set up The Silver Line, a confidential helpline to help older people combat loneliness later in life.

Dame Esther’s admission comes after it emerged that Dame Diana Rigg had made a heartfelt plea to MPs to give Britons autonomy over their own deaths shortly before she died in 2020.

In a series of audio recordings, Dame Diana called for legislative change to make assisted dying legal after pleading with her daughter Rachael Stirling to help her end her life.

Three years on from her death, actress Ms Stirling, 46, made the recordings public.

Dame Esther Rantzen has revealed that she has joined assisted-dying clinic Dignitas (pictured) and will consider going there to end her life should her next scan show she is getting worse 

Dame Esther said that if the next scan says nothing’s working, then she ‘might buzz off to Zurich’ (Pictured: A bed in the clinic Dignitas assisted suicide clinic)

The beloved star detailed the horrific symptoms she suffered in her final days. In the recordings, published by The Observer, she said: ‘I have cancer, and it is everywhere, and I have been given six months to live.

‘And I’m not frightened of describing the least attractive aspects of my condition: the fact of the matter is I have lost control of my bowels. This, to me, is quite the most dehumanising thing that can happen.

‘They don’t talk about how awful, how truly awful the details of this condition are, and the ignominy that is attached to it.

‘Well, it’s high time they did. And it is high time there was some movement in the law to give choice to people in my position.

‘This means giving human beings true agency over their own bodies at the end of life. This means giving human beings political autonomy over their own death.’

Dame Esther married Desmond Wilcox, a fellow journalist, in 1977. The couple had three children together, Miriam, Rebecca, and Josh, before Desmond died from heart disease in September 2000 aged 69

The broadcaster, 83, has called for a free vote on assisted dying as it’s ‘important that the law catches up with what the country wants’

Dame Esther said that she had discussed the issue with her family and they had told her it was her ‘decision’ and ‘choice’

Dame Prue Leith, 83, is also a long-standing campaigner on the issue of choice for terminally ill people, having witnessed her brother David die a painful death from bone cancer in 2012.

In May, the Great British Bake Off judge said at an event hosted by Dignity In Dying, for which she is a patron of, that MPs show ‘a lack of courage’ and ‘harm’ their constituents by not changing the law to legalise assisted dying.

READ MORE:  British woman, 45, with terminal breast cancer fast-tracks plan to die at Dignitas due to looming lockdown as she slams UK’s cruel assisted dying laws for forcing her to end her life alone

Assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

The Health and Social Care Committee is due to publish its report into assisted dying and assisted suicide in England and Wales, having launched an inquiry in December 2022 to examine different perspectives in the debate.

Dame Esther became a household name at the BBC and is perhaps best known for presenting That’s Life! – a programme featuring a mix of investigations, topical issues and entertainment – from 1973 to 1994.

In addition to her success as a journalist and broadcaster, she set up children’s charity Childline in 1986.

In 2006, the charity – which offers counselling and support for children and young people in the UK up until the age of 19 – became part of the The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).

She was made a DBE in 2015 for services to children and older people due to her charity work.

The full interview with Dame Esther on The Today Podcast is available on BBC Sounds today.

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