ESTHER'S PLEA TO NATION: SIGN PETITION FOR 'PATIENTS LIKE ME'

'If you believe, as I do, it's time Parliament debated  this most sensitive issue please sign the petition'

- Giles Sheldrick and Hanna Geissler

ESTHER Rantzen is asking the public to "urgently" get behind an Express online petition demanding a Commons debate on assisted dying for "patients like me".

In an impassioned plea the much-loved campaigner, 83, is calling for a "reform in the law so that we can decide ourselves if life becomes too painful to endure".

Dame Esther was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer one year ago.

In a searingly honest assessment of her future, the That's Life! host said: "If you believe, time that Parliament most sensitive issue please sign this petition. It is our life, it surely should be our choice, and for patients like me, it is urgent." The petition, which officially launches today and will gather signatures for six months, can be found and signed online at petition parliament.uk/petitions/653593 The Daily Express crusade Give Us Our Last Rights calls for assisted dying to be legalised for terminally ill, mentally sound people who are expected to die within six months as I do, it is debated this Under the current ban, relatives who answer family members' pleas to help them die can be jailed for conspiracy to murder.

Dame Esther, a grandmother-of-five who lost her beloved husband Desmond Wilcox to heart disease in 2000, said: "Many of us need the hope and reassurance of a reform in the law of assisted dying so that we can decide ourselves if life becomes too painful to endure.