Dame Esther Rantzen has shared a deeply painful reality behind her long-running campaign for assisted dying, revealing that she may have to face her final moments alone because she does not want her family exposed to a police investigation.
The Childline founder, now 85, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2023. Although she previously revealed that the drugs helping to prolong her life had stopped working, Dame Esther has now said her condition has developed in a way even her doctors did not expect.
Speaking on BBC’s Newsnight with Matt Chorley, she explained that her determination to protect her children means she would not want them to accompany her to Dignitas in Switzerland, where she has previously said she may choose to go when she has six months or less left to live.
She said: “I cannot bear for my own children to go through a police investigation at a time when, inevitably, they will feel loss.”
In one of the most heartbreaking moments of the interview, she added: “I mean they may be bored and tired of me, I’m looking at my son at the moment, by the time my time comes to go to Zurich but I have to go alone.”
Dame Esther continued: “I cannot take them with me, I cannot run the risk that they’re put through this terrible process of a police investigation when they would want to remember me well and I would want them to remember me well.”
Her comments once again place a human face on the assisted dying debate, which remains one of the most emotionally charged issues in British politics.
Despite the severity of her diagnosis, Dame Esther also revealed that she has lived longer than her oncologist had predicted. In a twist that has surprised even her medical team, she said her most recent scan showed signs of improvement, despite no longer receiving treatment.
She said: “The problem with me, according to my oncologist, is that I’m an outlier. I’m living longer than he expected me to.”
She went on: “Nobody knows why, but the last scan I had, things were improving, in spite of the fact the drugs aren’t working and I’m not being treated anymore.”
Her remarks come as the debate around the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill intensifies in Westminster. The proposed legislation is continuing its passage through the House of Lords, while pressure is growing on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to help ensure Parliament is given the chance to decide its future.
More than 100 Labour MPs have reportedly backed calls for the bill to move forward, arguing that elected MPs in the House of Commons should be allowed to make the final decision rather than seeing the legislation stalled through procedure.
For Dame Esther, however, the issue is not only political. It is personal, immediate and devastatingly intimate — a mother trying to shield her children from further pain, even if that means facing the end of her life without them by her side.
