Dame Esther Rantzen, the founder of the charity Childline and prominent campaigner for legalising assisted suicide, has died aged 86.
The former TV presenter was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2023. She had expressed an interest in assisted suicide for decades, but said that her cancer diagnosis had reinforced her belief that the law in England and Wales should be changed to permit the controversial practice.
She had joined Dignitas in 2023, and had said: “When I decide my life is no longer worth living, I will have to travel to Zurich to die, which will cost at least £15,000, so it is not a solution for everyone.”
Rantzen claimed that “going to Switzerland is the only way.”
However, Rantzen, who became a major public campaigner for changing British law in 2023, died surrounded by her family at home in New Forest in Hampshire, England.
Rantzen’s family said in a statement that they are asking for “privacy and time to grieve.”
The campaigner made her final statement on assisted suicide on September 10th, criticising the existing UK law prohibiting assisted suicide as “messy and cruel.”
While Rantzen had argued that she supported assisted suicide because relatives seeing a “bad death” could destroy memories, opponents argued that improvising palliative care, rather than facilitating suicide, was the appropriate response to suffering at the end of life.
On September 11th, the House of Commons rejected the latest attempt to legalise assisted suicide, something welcomed by right-to-life campaigners and MPs from across the political spectrum who had deemed the Bill unworkable.
In a BBC interview before her death, in March, Rantzen said that she was no longer receiving cancer treatment, and that her terminal condition had unexpectedly improved. She commented that her oncologist had described her as an “outlier” as she was living longer than expected.