Dame Esther Rantzen said it was a “tragic day” after MPs rejected the assisted dying bill.
The vocal proponent of a law change, speaking to the BBC via her daughter’s phone outside Parliament, said: “I’m so sad that people in this country won’t have the choice so many terminally ill adults in other countries have of shortening their own deaths by asking for help.
“I am sure a change in the law will come. I am deeply sad that it won’t come soon enough for many of the people who need it.”
Her daughter, Rebecca Wilcox, said she was devastated by the vote, but would not stop campaigning.
She told the broadcaster: “I don’t think it’s a vandalism of democracy, I think it’s a demolition of democracy.”
Ms Rantzen, who is terminally ill with cancer, had issued a plea to MPs to vote in favour of legalising assisted dying for England and Wales on Friday.
The Childline founder and former broadcaster has been a prominent campaigner for the legalisation of assisted dying, insisting that the law must “change and change quickly”.
MPs voted down the legislation 286 to 270 in a dramatic U-turn on Friday, after previously backing it 314 to 291 in the last Commons vote on the issue in June last year.
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