Professor Stephen Hawking, who once said he thought assisted dying was "a great mistake", has changed his stance to support the right of terminally ill people who are suffering to end their lives. 
 
 Hawking, 71, 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. 
 
 He said in 2006 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." 
 
 But in an interview with the BBC, Hawking, a cosmologist and theoretical physicist, 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," he said. "We don't let animals suffer, so why humans?" 
 
 He is concerned, however, that there must be safeguards to ensure that nobody's life is terminated against their wish. In 1985, when he became very ill with pneumonia, he was at one stage placed on a life support machine. His first wife, Jane Hawking, was given the option to turn it off. 
 
 "There must be safeguards that the person concerned genuinely wants to end their life and they are not being pressurised into it or have it done without their knowledge or consent as would have been the case with me," he told the interviewer. 
 
 Hawking has been held up as the supreme example of a human being who has triumphed over a failing body to achieve scientific and literary success. Only 5% of those diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease survive for more than a decade. Hawking cannot move and communicates through a computer slowly and laboriously, but produced the scientific bestseller A Brief History of Time, which sold 10m copies. Opponents of assisted dying have cited him as an example of why the law should not be changed. 
 
 His words are likely to further fuel the debate after tragic public appeals by several people who are terminally ill to be allowed to end their lives, including Tony Nicklinson, who lost his high court case for a change in the law to allow him help to die at home. Nicklinson then refused food and died within the week. 
 
 The Dignity in Dying chief executive, Sarah Wootton, said the British Social Attitudes survey in 2007 found that a large majority of both disabled and non-disabled people support a change in the law. 
 
 "Professor Stephen Hawking's comments reinforce that, providing proper and rigorous safeguards are in place in an assisted dying law, there is no reason to oppose a law which gives dying people the right to choose the manner and timing of their death," she said. 
 
 "Lord Falconer's assisted dying bill, due to be debated in the House of Lords next year, includes robust legal safeguards which would better protect people than the current situation where the law turns a blind eye to those helping loved ones to die. Such a change would not result in more people dying, but in fewer people suffering." ||||| Physicist tells BBC programme he would consider ending his life if he had nothing more to contribute and was a burden to those around him 
 
 Stephen Hawking has said he would consider ending his own life if he became a burden to others or if he had “nothing more to contribute”. 
 
 But the physicist and cosmologist told a forthcoming BBC programme he knows he has much more scientific work to do, despite his advanced motor neurone disease. 
 
 “To keep someone alive against their wishes is the ultimate indignity,” Hawking, 73, told his interviewer, the comedian Dara O’Briain. “I would consider assisted suicide only if I were in great pain or felt I had nothing more to contribute but was just a burden to those around me.” 
 
 O’Briain, who himself has a degree in theoretical physics, said Hawking would give “impressively honest answers” in the programme, according to the Telegraph. 
 
 It is not the first time Hawking has voiced support for assisted suicide – in 2014, he revealed in a BBC interview how he had attempted to die after a mid-1980s tracheostomy operation. “I briefly tried to commit suicide by not breathing,” he said. “However, the reflex to breathe was too strong.” 
 
 Hawking, who is the director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge, has said those who help their loved ones who want to die should be immune from prosecution. 
 
 But he has also said he believes safeguards should ensure a person genuinely wishes to die, pointing to a famous incident in his own life. In 1985, when suffering complications from pneumonia, his then-wife, Jane, refused to turn off his life support machine. Hawking recovered and went on to complete his critically and popularly acclaimed book A Brief History of Time. 
 
 In his forthcoming BBC interview, Hawking said he felt he had many more discoveries to make and theories to produce. “I am damned if I’m going to die before I have unravelled more of the universe,” he said. 
 
 
 
 I am damned if I’m going to die before I have unravelled more of the universe Stephen Hawking 
 
 The scientist expressed regret at not being able to easily communicate, with peers and fans, who he said are often nervous of approaching him or making conversation. 
 
 “At times I get very lonely because people are afraid to talk to me or don’t wait for me to write a response,” he said. “I’m shy and tired at times. I find it difficult to talk to people I don’t know.” 
 
 Hawking, who was told aged 21 he would have just two years to live and has been in a wheelchair since the late 1960s, said he still felt frustrated by his loss of movement. “I would like to be able to swim again,” he said. “When my children were young, I missed not being able to play with them physically.” 
 
 It is currently still a criminal offence in the UK to assist someone to take their own life but 2010 guidance from the Department of Public Prosecutions makes it unlikely for friends and family to be prosecuted. 
 
 The shadow justice secretary, Lord Falconer, plans to reintroduce a private member’s bill on the issue, which provides assistance for patients who have formed a “clear and settled intention” to end their life. It is highly unlikely to become law, however, without some kind of government support. 
 
 The full interview will be broadcast as part of one-off programme, Dara O’Briain meets Stephen Hawking, on BBC1 on 16 June.
– Stephen Hawking has come out in favor of physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill, provided there are significant safeguards in place. When asked about his position on the issue in 2006, the famous cosmologist and author called it a "great mistake," noting, "While there's life, there's hope," reports the Guardian. But in a new BBC interview tied to the upcoming release of the documentary Hawking, he changes his tune. "We don't let animals suffer, so why humans?" he asks, saying that family members should be free to help end a loved one's suffering without fear of prosecution. But precautions must be in place to ensure "that the person concerned genuinely wants to end their life and they are not being pressured into it or have it done without their knowledge or consent as would have been the case with me"—Hawking was put on life support in 1985, and his wife was given the option to pull the plug. In the documentary, which Reuters notes is set for UK release on Friday, he also addresses his failed marriages.