Dame Esther Rantzen has said she would give the country a free vote on assisted dying were she prime minister for a day, after revealing that she has registered with Dignitas.
The broadcaster and campaigner, 83, known for starting the charity Childline, revealed in May her lung cancer had progressed to stage four.
On Tuesday’s edition (19 December) of BBC Radio 4’s Today podcast, Rantzen said her belief that more people would want to choose the manner of their death if they were allowed.
“Almost everyone when asked says yes, people should be given the choice,” she told hosts Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson.
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“You’re given a choice over so many other things, medical and otherwise why should you not be given the choice about how you want to go and when you want to go?”
The former That’s Life! host then stated that she’d joined Dignitas, the Switzerland-based assisted dying organisation, to have a choice about the end of her life.
Assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
After stating that she initially didn’t think she’d survive to see her birthday in June, nor this Christmas, the Childline and Silverline founder paraphrased a quote from filmmaker Woody Allen by saying that she’s more afraid of dying, than of death itself.
“We’ve all got to leave this world – it’s how you go,” she said.
“My late husband went very well, and my mother went very well – but my dog went better than both of them.”
Rantzen’s long-held interest in the process of dying was greatly influenced by the death of her late husband, TV producer Desmond Wilcox, in 2000.
Dame Esther Rantzen and her husband, Desmond Wilcox in 1986
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“When he died, the doctors around him found it very difficult to stop trying to rescue him,” she explained. “Even when it was quite clear that there was nothing they could do, they kept trying.
“And this got between us. They kept testing him, and this and that. Really, we would have just liked to cuddle each other and be together.”
For Rantzen, registering with Dignitas is a way of having the option of control over the way she dies, but not necessarily her fixed plan for the end of her life.
“I have in my brain thought, ‘Well, if the next scan says nothing’s 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.”
The presenters then asked Rantzen what her first act would be if she was temporarily appointed the prime minister, to which she replied: “Well, I think I would get them to do a free vote on assisted dying. I think it’s important that the law catches up with what the country wants.”
When asked about her family’s position on her having the option to die with assistance in Switzerland, Rantzen said she’d explained her views to them at length and that they respected them.
“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 their happy times,” she said.
“I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to be that sort of victim in their lives.”
