Dame Esther Rantzen has hit back at critics of her assisted dying campaign after a columnist attempted to use her terminal cancer experience as an argument against it.
The veteran broadcaster, 84, has stage four lung cancer and is backing efforts to change the law to give people who are nearing the end of life greater control over their deaths.
Telegraph writer Michael Deacon last week suggested she should “see the folly of her campaigning” after receiving life-prolonging treatment.
His comments came after Dame Esther revealed that a new wonder drug, Osimertinib, may keep her disease at bay “for months, even years”. She told of her joy at planting spring bulbs in the hope that she will live long enough to see them flower.
Mr Deacon wrote: “Well, all I can say is, it’s lucky that ‘assisted dying’ is not legal just yet. Indeed, had it been legal a year ago, Dame Esther might be no longer with us.
“Because she herself might well have taken advantage of the opportunity she has so passionately campaigned for – and thus missed out on the ‘new wonder drug’ that, by her own admission, may extend her life for years.”
The columnist argued that terminally ill people may receive an incorrect prognosis and end their lives before they “may yet be prolonged by some marvellous new medication”.
But writing in the Express, Dame Esther brands the argument “nonsense” because assisted dying would only be a last resort once her treatment stops working.
The Childline founder says: “Of course, while my ‘miracle drug’, Osimertinib, is successfully holding my cancer at bay and I am able to enjoy my life with my loved ones, I will not need to go to Dignitas in Zurich, and obviously would not choose an immediate assisted death.
“So until my drug fails to work, I will not have to travel, alone, (due to our current cruel criminal law) to Switzerland.”
Describing Mr Deacon’s portrayal of her situation as “quite wrong”, Dame Esther stresses that her oncologist advised her from the start that no-one could predict how long the drug would keep working.
And she adds: “While I believe the columnist has the right to choose, he has no right to impose his choice on you, or me.”
Some Telegraph readers agreed with Mr Deacon by others branded his argument “disingenuous”, “full of holes” and “misleading”.
One reader commented: “Irrespective of the views expressed…the tone and mocking nature of this article is shameful and entirely inappropriate.”
Dame Esther’s tireless campaigning alongside the Express Give Us Our Last Rights Crusade helped keep assisted dying at the top of the political agenda last year.
In a landmark November vote, MPs backed a Bill seeking to legalise it for terminally ill people who have less than six months to live by a majority of 55.
A committee led by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who introduced the Private Member’s Bill, will now scrutinise every line of the bill over the coming months before a further Commons vote.