Rebecca Wilcox, the daughter of TV legend Dame Esther Rantzen, has urged MPs to vote in favour of the assisted dying bill, saying she spends most days at her mother's bedside witnessing the “ugly and horrible” reality of having no assisted dying laws in the UK.
Wilcox, 44, a journalist and consumer presenter, is calling on MPs today to “do the easy thing” and vote 'yes' for the historic Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. She said she cannot bear to see someone else going through a painful death.
Dame Esther's condition
Dame Esther, 86, who is terminally ill with cancer, is receiving end-of-life care. In a statement released on Thursday, she revealed it is too late for her to “buzz off” to Dignitas as planned, saying she is now “too physically fragile to make the journey” despite having made all the arrangements.
Her daughter, who will be on Parliament Square waiting for the results of the vote today around 2pm, told The Mirror: “Today I hope it’s as simple as it needs to be because I am sitting by the side of my mother’s bed most days now, looking at what the alternative is if you don’t have assisted dying and it is ugly and horrible.”
Guilt and frustration
Wilcox spoke of the guilt she feels, worrying that her mother may not have gone to Dignitas because she wanted to spend time with her family. She also expressed frustration that her mother had completed all the paperwork and paid the full amount, but her illness has now “grounded her”.
“The status quo is undignified, it’s painful, it’s ugly and it’s unworthy of somebody like my mum and so many other people who are going through this,” she said. “She is brave and brilliant and clever and charismatic and she should not be going through what she’s going through.”
Wilcox added: “I can't see anyone else I love go through this? Any pain is too much pain. If you think about the type of cancer she has and the treatment she has been given which is properly amazing, she is having every intervention and every help and the pain is still there. The discomfort is still bad. Medicine can only go so far.”
The vote and the bill
MPs will vote on the Second Reading of the Bill. If it passes, it will continue through Parliament for further consideration by MPs and peers in the House of Lords. It must pass both Houses to become law.
The Bill would allow terminally ill people in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live to seek an assisted death, subject to approval by doctors and legal professionals. While the Bill passed two votes in the Commons in 2024 and 2025, it ran out of time in the Lords in April and has been reintroduced by Labour MP Lauren Edwards.
Dame Esther's statement this week described the current law in the UK as "cruel". She said: "Obviously, I would prefer that my end could be swift and painless and I could ask for help now I'm dying. But I can't. I knew it would be like this if I died in this country because the current criminal law preventing anyone to help me shorten my death is messy and cruel."
Assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. While it is a specific criminal offence in Scotland, assisting the death of someone can leave a person open to being charged with murder or other offences.
Campaigners in favour of a change in the law say the Bill would offer choice to dying adults. Those against argue it could pose a danger to the most vulnerable in society through coercion or feeling like a burden, and insist there are not enough safeguards in place.
