Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said in a phone call with broadcaster and campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen that he will try to push through a law to allow for assisted suicide if he becomes prime minister, despite fierce opposition from much of the medical profession.
Sir Keir, who has previously spoken in favour of assisted dying, said he will allow time for a debate and a free vote in Parliament if Labour wins the next general election, which is widely predicted to be in May.
In the call filmed by ITV News, Sir Keir told Ms. Rantzen, who is suffering from lung cancer and has expressed a wish for an assisted suicide, that he is “personally committed” to a change in the law.
“I’m personally in favour of changing the law,” he told her. “I think we need to make time. We will make the commitment. Esther, I can give you that commitment right now.”
Ms. Rantzen, who has stage four cancer, said she is asking for terminally ill people to to be allowed the right to die “when and how they choose.”
It is currently illegal to help someone take their own life in the UK, with those who wish to do so opting to travel to countries such as Switzerland or running the risk of those who help them being prosecuted.
The offence is punishable by up to 14 years in prison, although prosecutions are rare.
The debate around assisted suicide is highly contentious, with many concerned about the possibility of terminally ill, very elderly, and severely disabled people feeling pressured to opt to end their lives, while many are opposed to it on religious and ethical grounds.
But there is a growing political momentum in favour of allowing assisted dying, which was last debated in the House of Commons in 2021, when nearly 1,700 health care professionals signed a letter to then Health Secretary Sajid Javid to voice their opposition to the proposed change in the law.
The signatories included current and retired doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and medical students, said they would not help people to take their lives, and stressed, “The shift from preserving life to taking life is enormous and should not be minimised.”
Childline founder Ms. Rantzen told ITN: “When you reach my advanced age of 83 and a bit, you have seen people you love pass away.
“Some peacefully and painlessly, but not all and, unfortunately, when someone you love has a very painful death that memory obliterates the good times when you think about them.
“You remember their suffering and I don’t want my family to have that. That would be all wrong.
“So, as far as I’m concerned I would much rather, when I knew the end was coming, choose a painless death.”
Criticised for Using ‘Bodily Autonomy’ Argument
Ms. Rantzen has come under fierce online criticism for using arguments in favour of bodily autonomy for assisted suicide because she advocated effectively forcing people to take the COVID-19 vaccines, which are known to have killed and injured many people.GB News presenter Beverley Turner said on social media platform X: “One of the most disturbing debates I did during the pandemic was with Esther Rantzen who was arguing for covid vaccines and vax passports for kids. ‘You were the one who taught my generation about bodily autonomy,’ I said, ‘YOU were the one who said your body matters and you shouldn’t ever have to succumb to pressure to do anything that you don’t want.’ She didn’t like that.”
Ms. Rantzen also said that over-65s who declined the COVID-19 jabs should not go to hospital and “take up space in an ICU bed” if they became ill with the virus, comments which were widely criticised.
In his former role as director of public prosecutions, Sir Keir drafted guidelines which effectively softened the law on prosecuting those who helped end the lives of others through assisted suicide in the UK.
In 2015, he said he would vote in favour of assisted dying when former Labour MP Rob Marris failed to get his private members’ bill through.
Then a backbencher under Jeremy Corbyn, Sir Keir gave a speech in the House of Commons in which he spoke of the years of suffering his mother, Josephine, had endured after she developed the rare auto-immune condition, Still’s disease, when she was 10.
He said that his mother eventually had her leg amputated in 2008 and was “bedridden, unable to clothe, feed, or wash herself and no longer spoke. She was so ill that St. Thomas’s hospital discharged her so that she could die at home.”
However, he said, “She did not give up. She fought her disease, as she always had. She lived until 19th April, [2015] when she died peacefully at home having battled ill health for 65 of her 75 years ... Despite years of great pain and disability, to my knowledge she never contemplated suicide.”
‘Safeguards With Teeth’
The Labour leader said in December last year that a private members’ bill and a free vote “seems appropriate.”“Firstly, I think the debate has to be conducted with respect. I personally think the law should be changed. There will be people equally passionate, with powerful points to make about why it shouldn’t be,” he said.
Polling suggests the Labour Party is on course to win the election by a landslide, making the prospect of a huge social change through assisted suicide a real possibility.
Sir Keir acknowledged “safeguards with teeth” would have to be put in place to protect the vulnerable.
