Professor Stephen Hawking (71) changed his stance on assisted dying in a recent BBC interview. In 2006 he said that, although people should have the right to end their life if they wanted to, … “I think it would be a great mistake. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.“
In a recent interview with the BBC though he offered his unqualified support to those who feel their life is no longer tolerable. “I think those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their lives and those that help them should be free from prosecution. We don’t let animals suffer, so why humans?“
Hawking was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease – a form of motor neurone disease – at the age of 21 and was told he had only two or three years to live.