Stephen Hawking reveals he briefly toyed with idea of suicide in 80s

Stephen Hawking has confessed that he briefly tried to commit suicide in the 1980s when his worsening neurological disease left him unable to breathe or speak without assistance.

The 72-year-old Brit theoretical physicist told BBC that if one had a terminal illness and were in great pain then one had the right to choose to end their life, the Independent reported.

The Cambridge professor asserted that according to him everyone should have the right to choose to end their own life, whether they were capable of doing so without assistance or not.

Hawking added that it was discrimination against disabled people to deny them to right to kill themselves that able bodied people have but it would be wrong to despair and commit suicide unless one was in great pain.