Wheelchair-bound Theoretical Physicist Stephen Hawking has recently come out with hi stance on Supported suicide:

"I think those with a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their lives, and those who help them should be free from prosecution," the British cosmologist said.

Stephen Hawking had been 21 when he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a motor neuron disease, and was told that he was only going to be able to live for another two or three years. Now he is 71 years old and one of most brilliant scientists the world has ever known.

But Stephen hawking had not always been a supporter of institutionalized suicide. In 2006 he spoke out against assisted death, claiming that "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's hope," he adds.

While Hawking might have appeared to change his mind, supporters of assisted suicide say that he was never staunchly against it in the first place.

In 1985, as Stephen Hawking was suffering from a severe bout of pneumonia, his first wife Jane had been given the chance to pull all life support. Hawking had not wanted to die then.

Critics who are against the idea of assisted suicide point out that it could leave several patients vulnerable, and the delicate line by which sufferers tread life and death could be taken advantage of by those close to them.

"There must be safeguards that the person concerned genuinely wants to end their life and are not being pressurized into it or have it done without their knowledge and consent as would have been the case with me," Hawking said of his support of assisted suicide.

Stephen Hawking is completely incapable of movement, able to communicate only via a cheek muscle linked to a sensors and a computerized voice system. He continues to be an active advocate for disabled people despite his support of assisted suicide.

Supporters of the movement maintain their desire for terminally-ill sufferers to end their own lives with dignity, however, its opponents are touchy about matters of life and point out its potential for abuse.

Assisted suicide is considered illegal in Britain, while some forms of euthanasia and assisted suicide is legal, though under certain circumstances, in Switzerland and some U.S. states.