'We ask for change to give us the choice, not to shorten our lives but to shorten our death'

LAWMAKERS have a once-in-adecade opportunity to change Britain's cruel and inhumane assisted dying laws, Dame Esther Rantzen says.

- Giles Sheldrick

This month MPs will vote on giving the terminally ill the right to die and the cancer-stricken campaigner has begged them to seize the moment.

Dame Esther, 84, who was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer last year, said: "What breaks my heart is the tragic consequence if, at the end of their debate on November 29, MPs vote against any change in the law.

"Not that it would affect me personally, because the truth is any change in the law would not come in time for me.

"But for the hundreds of thousands of other terminally ill people who will have to suffer over the next decade, which is the length of time Parliament would no doubt wait before they approach this sensitive subject again." MPs will be given a free vote based on conscience when Kim Leadbeater's Private Members' Bill has its second reading.

But the campaigners fear momentum behind a push to reform a law that criminalises helping a sick person in ending their life is fast fading.

Heath Secretary Wes Streeting said he will vote against equipping the dying with legal protection despite polling showing it is what a majority of the public wants.

Cruelty

The result of the ballot is on a knife edge with a large number of the 650 MPs expected to either follow Mr Streeting and vote against, or abstain, to avoid controversy.