Esther Rantzen shares final meal plan before ending her life in cancer battle
Dame Esther Rantzen has shared her dream final supper before she ends her life through assisted suicide - and it is a meal of things that don’t agree with her.
The 83-year-old broadcaster revealed last year that she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and she has been campaigning to make physician-assisted suicide legal in the UK. The TV star, who also set up the charity Childline in 1986, has signed up to the Switzerland based euthanasia clinic Dignitas.
Dame Esther hopes to be able to end her own life when she feels the time is right for her, but doesn’t want her family to be penalised if they help her travel to Switzerland. Under current laws, those who aid those who seek assisted suicide abroad could be accused of murder - and the broadcaster hopes the laws will change before she reaches the point of wanting to end her life.
In the event she does travel to Switzerland to seek life-ending treatment, Dame Esther says she would love to dine out on caviar and drink champagne as a final meal. She says that caviar has made her feel sick in the past - and says she is allergic to champagne, but she would gladly consume both as there would be no worry over consequences.
Dame Esther Rantzen has discussed what her final meal would be before she is euthanised (FILE)She told LBC Radio: "I'd like to fly off to Zurich with my nearest and dearest. Have a fantastic dinner the night before. I'd love caviar, if possible, and the fact that it doesn't always agree with me doesn't matter, does it?
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"I could even have champagne, which I'm deeply allergic to. Then the next day, go to this rather unappealing place where they do it.” Sharing more details of her final plans, she continued: "Listen to a favourite piece of music, say goodbye to everybody. Tell them to cheer up. I'm meeting my late husband, my departed dog and my mother at the pearly gates. Hold up my hand for an injection or open my mouth for a rather disgusting medication."
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said last year he would not object to euthanasia being debated in the UK (Getty Images)Dame Esther says she longs to have the chance to say goodbye gracefully rather than allow her body to be destroyed by cancer. She said: "I've got an amazing family and a group of friends and colleagues. So I'd like to say goodbye fairly gracefully, as much as I can muster, and then go, that's what I'd like."
The charity founder says she wants the law to change to allow people in the UK to terminate their own lives without risk of loved ones being prosecuted. She said: "The intentions are good... to protect people in the last days of their life, from being coerced into something by greedy relatives, or other crimes of that kind… As I have terminal cancer, it is a possibility that my life will become too painful, that my suffering will be too great."
Last December, Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride addressed the issue of assisted suicide in the UK after Dame Esther brought the issues into the headlines. He the Today programme: “The government has not decided to bring forward legislation, but if Parliament in some form or another decided that it wanted to have a fresh look at this, given it was some years ago that we last did so, that's not something that I would be resistant to."
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