Cancer-stricken Esther Rantzen living from scan to scan, says daughter
The former That’s Life! presenter has been campaigning to make assisted dying legal since being diagnosed with lung cancer in January 2023.
The daughter of TV star Dame Esther Rantzen has said she is “living from scan to scan” as the pair campaign to make assisted dying legal.
Rebecca Wilcox, 44, was speaking on Good Morning Britain, where she told presenters her mother, who has lung cancer, was on a “miracle drug”, which “seems to be working”.
Speaking about her mother’s health on the ITV show, Wilcox said: “As anyone who lives with a terminal illness knows, you live from scan to scan.
“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.”
Dame Esther, 84, began her career as a sound effects assistant on BBC radio, before becoming a researcher on a number of the corporation’s shows. In 1973, she got her big break with the consumer show, That’s Life!
The show went beyond the reaches of a traditional show of its kind, shutting down abusive boarding schools and campaigning for more organ donors.
Dame Esther’s work on the show eventually led to her setting up Childline in 1986, and she has been a passionate campaigner ever since.
She set up an elderly equivalent of Childline, The Silver Line, in 2013, and most recently began campaigning for assisted dying to be legalised, after her diagnosis in January 2023.
Wilcox said she and her mother felt like time was running out to get the process decriminalised in time for her mother to see her work come to fruition.
She said: “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.
“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.”
Wilcox went on to explain 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 guidance says those accompanying their loved ones to Dignitas are “unlikely” to be prosecuted.
Wilcox added: “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 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”.
