In this segment of Breaking Battlegrounds, hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone continue their discussion with Alexander Raikin, visiting fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Raikin warns that Canada’s controversial MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) regime is quickly becoming the blueprint for assisted suicide laws across the globe—including here in the United States.

Focusing on New York’s proposed legislation, Raikin highlights how dangerously permissive the bill is: unlike states such as Oregon or Colorado, it would impose no waiting period at all. That means a patient could walk into a clinic, find a willing doctor or even a nurse practitioner, and walk out with lethal drugs the same day—no safeguards, no second thoughts.

Raikin draws a striking comparison: New York imposes a 30-day waiting period to buy a firearm, yet its new euthanasia bill could allow people struggling with depression or serious illness to obtain life-ending drugs instantly. He calls this not only reckless but profoundly perverse, since many of those seeking assisted suicide suffer from psychiatric comorbidities that make them especially vulnerable.

Most doctors, pharmacists, and nurses reject participation, but Raikin warns that a small, zealous group in medicine is determined to normalize and expand euthanasia. He argues this push ignores the very purpose of healthcare and undermines society’s duty to protect the most vulnerable.

Transcript

**Sam Stone: **And I want to move on to another piece you wrote here. Canada's made regime cautionary Taylor template. Cause this is another kind of underlying story in this now is that across the globe, even the people that are promoting these regimes, it seems to be sort of a very dishonest narrative that they're building around Canada where they point at cannon and go, we don't want to do that. They're, they're out of control, but then the regimes that they're building in their own countries or states are effectively mirroring Canada's program.

**Alexander Raikin: **Exactly. So where I'm really concerned with New York's bill on assisted suicide, and just to be clear, it passed the state legislature, but it still has to be signed into law by the governor. And there is a chance that the government will veto it. But where I'm really concerned is that this is the first, if this actually comes into law, this would be the first time that there is no, there's no waiting period whatsoever.

In other states like Colorado or Oregon, you can wait the waiting period, but there is no waiting period whatsoever in the New York State bill, which means that someone can go to their doctor and doctor shop until they can find their doctor. And in some cases, this doesn't even have to be a doctor, it be nurse practitioner. And as soon as you find someone who's willing to write a prescription for suicide pills, you can receive it that same day, right?

So you would think the most basic safeguards, which is let's at least wait a day, right? Let's least wait to make sure that you are not asking this just because you're feeling depressed or because you're in turmoil, right? You can receive it that same day. And in states like in the states like Washington, you can mail it on to the United States. So we're really talking about like suicide tourism happening right now in the U.S.

**Sam Stone: **I actually want to throw this out there because Washington if I remember I went to school in Oregon and I think at one point I actually bought a firearm in a store in Washington. I think they have a three-day waiting period for a firearm purchase and one of the reasons for that.

**Chuck Warren: **Its 30 days in New York to up they can have up to 30 days to do your background check to buy a gun in New York. So there's more there's more waiting period than being able to go in and get basically this poison you ingest like you're going to go get an antibiotic for strep throat and instacare.

**Sam Stone: **And one of the justifications when they put in those waiting periods was suicidal individuals.

**Alexander Raikin: **So I mean, think about like how perverse this is, right? For something like a firearm, right? The vast majority of people who own firearms do not have depression, right? They're normal people. They have functioning jobs, right? They're not sick. That is the vast majority of people with firearms in this country. And you still have to go through that period.

But what this is to do is that we're talking to people who have serious illnesses, right? Who have depression. We know that great psychiatric comorbidities are very high for people who request assisted suicide, as you would expect. And yet for those people, there's no waiting period whatsoever.

**Chuck Warren: **Yeah, that's really insane and I wonder if the folks pushing against this euthanasia bill in New York, because that's what it is, are bringing up. You expect more time waiting to purchase a firearm than somebody just saw on a whim saying, I'm doing this today and I found a doctor and I'm gonna go down to Walgreens and get it.

I mean, are there special pharmacies for this or can they get it any pharmacy, by the way?

**Alexander Raikin: **Oh, it's strictly done in compounding pharmacies. Look, the basic fact is that most physicians, most pharmacists, most nurses want nothing to do with this, right? Right. They want to do their work. They want to heal their patients. They don't want to help their patients die. Right. That is the vast majority of the medical field. And yet, and I mean, as you can see, by the virtue of the fact that the American Medical Association continues to vote in favor of its condemnation of assisted suicide.

And they've done this ever since, even before Oregon legalizes this suicide program. The issue is that you have a small subsection of the medical field who are very, very, very passionate about killing their patients. And I've interviewed many of them, I've spoken with many of them. They legitimately believe that they are helping their patients, they do believe that by helping their patients die, they are improving their quality of life.

**Sam Stone: **This is just nuts.

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