‘If you watch someone you love having a bad death, that memory obliterates all the happy times’
Esther Rantzen has revealed she has joined the Dignitas assisted dying clinic in Switzerland.
The 83-year-old was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer almost a year ago, and is currently undergoing a “miracle” treatment for the illness.
But the broadcasting legend told Radio 4’s The Today podcast that if the treatment is unsuccessful she “might buzz off to Zurich”, where assisted dying is legal.
Assisted suicide is illegal in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.
Dignitas is a clinic in Switzerland that provides physician-assisted dying to relieve suffering.
Rantzen confirmed she had joined the not-for-profit organisation so that her family’s “last memories” of her aren’t “painful.”
She said: “If you watch someone you love having a bad death, that memory obliterates all the happy times.”
The former That’s Life! presenter said she hadn’t expected to see this Christmas following her diagnosis last year, and was looking forward to the “precious” time with family.
She said: “I thought I’d fall off my perch within a couple of months, if not weeks. I certainly didn’t think I’d make my birthday in June, which I did, and I definitely didn’t think I’d make this Christmas, which I am. It appears, although anything can happen.”
But she admitted that if she does decided to travel to Dignitas for an assisted death, it would put her “family and friends in a difficult position because they would want to go with me, and that means that the police might prosecute them”.
The television veteran presented BBC show That’s Life! for 21 years and also launched ChildLine, a charity which provides free support and advice to children and young people.
Rantzen said if she was Prime Minister for the day, she would get Parliament to have a “free vote on assisted dying,” saying it’s “important that the law catches up with what the country wants.”
The Health and Social Care Committee launched an inquiry in December 2022 to look at both sides of the debate on assisted suicide and assisted dying in England and Wales.
It is due to publish its report soon.
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