ESTHER'S 'HEART LIFTED AT HOPE OF DYING IN FAVOURITE PLACE

Lord's launch of Bill to legalise assisted dying brings hope for end to injustice

- Giles Sheldrick

DAME Esther Rantzen says today's bid to legalise assisted dying brings hope of a dignified end on her own terms.

The terminally ill campaigner's heart lifted at the prospect of dying at her beloved home surrounded by loved ones instead of alone in a suicide clinic overseas, thanks to the new push in the House of Lords.

Dame Esther, 84, who has stage 4 lung cancer, said: "Instead of dying in my own home, with my family and close friends around me to say goodbye, I would have to go to Dignitas and die there legally, but alone. A bleak way to end a happy life.

"Now, for the first time, I can see a gleam of light at the end of a tunnel which has trapped me for so long.

"Suddenly my heart lifted." In the House of Lords today, former Justice Secretary Lord Falconer will launch his second attempt to legalise assisted dying - a decade after seeing his first attempt fail.

He said: "The public has been waiting long enough for us to change the law and this Bill could, at last, right the harms inflicted by our outdated laws. It is urgently time for compassion and change."

Should he succeed, terminally ill people with less than six months left to live would be allowed to seek an assisted death. After decades of injustice and missed opportunities for reform, the prospect has given fresh hope to Dame Esther and tens of thousands of other people suffering from terminal illnesses for whom she continues to fight.

In an earlier interview the lifelong campaigner had said: "I will probably not be given the chance to die in my favourite place, my New Forest cottage. Never mind.