Michael Deacon. DT.
Esther Rantzen fought for
‘assisted dying’. Now she’s
surely killed it off.
Marvellous news about the broadcaster’s
response to a lung cancer
wonder drug ought to help her
see the folly of her campaigning
Michael DeaconColumnist & Assistant Editor
01 January 2025 7:00pm GMT
The other day, Dame Esther Rantzen announced some wonderful news. In an article she’d written for a national newspaper, headlined “The 10 things that make me so happy to be alive”, she revealed that “the new wonder drug I’m on”, known as Osimertinib, may hold back the spread of her stage-four lung cancer “for months, even years”.
Fantastic. I’m so glad to hear it. I just have one small, gentle question.
Is this the same Dame Esther Rantzen who has been leading the campaign to legalise what she calls “assisted dying” (and which some of us prefer to call state-sanctioned suicide)?
I do believe it is. Because, in October, I distinctly recall Sir Keir Starmer explaining to the nation that he had “made a promise to Esther Rantzen before the election that we would provide time for a debate and a vote on assisted dying”. Later that same month, Kim Leadbeater – the Labour MP who brought forward the assisted dying Bill – publicly thanked the “inspirational” Dame Esther for her “steadfast campaigning on changing the law to give terminally ill people (like her) a choice at the end [of] life”.
Well, all I can say is, it’s lucky that “assisted dying” is not legal just yet. Indeed, had it been legal a year ago, Dame Esther might be no longer with us. Because she herself might well have taken advantage of the opportunity she has so passionately campaigned for – and thus missed out on the “new wonder drug” that, by her own admission, may extend her life for years.
Has this joyous development given Dame Esther pause for thought? Has it made her suspect that it might not be such a good idea to legalise “assisted dying” after all? Has it at least prompted her to consider the possibility that the Bill, as it stands, contains some serious flaws?
I’m afraid I must assume that it hasn’t. Because, towards the end of her article, in which she looks forward to the extra time she appears to have been granted, she fondly recalls the “huge relief” she felt less than five weeks ago “when the assisted dying Bill, which I supported, passed its second reading, something I never expected to see”.
Still, even if Dame Esther can’t spot the problem here, surely our MPs can? On Sunday we reported that “dozens” of MPs who voted in favour of the Bill in November “could withdraw their backing after concerns over the role of medical practitioners and the risk of coercion”.
Those are certainly excellent reasons for them to abandon their support. But now they’ve got another. Because the celebrity figurehead of the “assisted dying” campaign has unwittingly highlighted the crucial point that, even if a couple of doctors reckon that you’ve got only a few months left to live, they might well turn out to be wrong. Your life, like Dame Esther’s, may yet be prolonged by some marvellous new medication – enabling you to continue revelling in the everyday joys that she celebrates in her list. Such as, for example, spring bulbs.
“When I thought I would drop off my perch in a matter of weeks, there seemed little point in ordering bulbs which would not flower for months,” she writes. “Happily the new drug has postponed my perch-dropping for months, even years, so I’m surviving and this winter’s bulbs are in the soil. Hope is here. Spring’s on its way…”
I agree. Hope is indeed here. In particular, the hope that our MPs have all read her article, and reflected on its implications – even if its author hasn’t. Dame Esther has long fought for “assisted dying”. But now she may well have killed it off.
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