Esther Rantzen health update as cancer-stricken TV star’s daughter fears assisted dying prosecution

That’s Life! host Dame Esther Rantzen, 84, was diagnosed with lung cancer in January last year and is now living “scan to scan” as she continues to call for the right to choose when she passes away. Her daughter, Rebecca Wilcox, told Good Morning Britain despite her mother taking a “miracle drug” she still fears the implications of helping her decide when to end her own life.

“As anyone who lives with a terminal illness knows, you live from scan to scan,” the 44-year-old said. “She’s on this miracle drug, which seems to be working, but we don’t have any long term data for how long it will work, but at the moment it’s working. So yes, she lives scan to scan, but we’re really enjoying what we have.”

Wilcox said she and her mother felt like time was running out to get the process decriminalised in time for her to see her work come to fruition. “We feel like we’re living in an hourglass and the sand is pouring on us and there will come a point where our heads are no longer above it,” she said.

“I really want politicians, the MPs and the people of this country to realise, we all have a choice in how we live, and I want us to have a choice in how we die. This is not about shortening people’s life, this is about their death and making it dignified, giving them the choice.

“It’s nothing to do with making people feel the burden of society, it’s nothing to do with making people feel like they should commit suicide to help their family members. It’s to do with a terminal diagnosis of six months or less, and they’re an adult, and it’s not outsourcing it to Switzerland.”

She explained issues over the legal implications of her mother joining Dignitas, which she did in December 2023, and said she could not “risk 14 years in prison”.

She also feared that any investigation could have the potential to stop her work with Childline. Criminal Prosecution Service (CPS) guidance says those accompanying their loved ones to Dignitas are “unlikely” to be prosecuted. “The law is unclear, the law is messy, it is making bad cases and making bad laws, nobody really understands what is going on,” she added.

She said she was “disappointed” there was no mention of legalising assisted dying in the King’s speech, after Dame Esther had met prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, before he was elected, and received a promise from him that the government “will make time for this matter”.

The interview came on the day it was announced Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill will be introduced to the House of Lords. The Bill was drawn second in the Lords private members’ bills ballot for 2024 and is due for its first reading on July 26.

Last week, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer doubled down on his commitment to making time for an assisted dying bill to be debated and for a free vote – a promise he made personally to Dame Esther earlier this year. And next week, the Isle of Man’s Assisted Dying Bill will have its Third Reading debate, the furthest an assisted dying bill has ever reached in the British Isles.