Compassion & Choices is an advocacy group that aims to give patients power over the choices for their end-of-life care; the group’s executives include Kimberly Callinan, the President and CEO; Kevin Díaz, the Chief Legal Advocacy Officer and General Counsel; and Sean Crowley, the Senior National Media Relations Director. The Harvard Undergraduate Law Review sat down with Callinan, Díaz, and Crowley to discuss the current legal climate surrounding medical aid-in-dying, legislation of recent years, and the future of advocacy efforts.

In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a right to privacy that protects a pregnant woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion. In 1992, the Court ruled in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that states could not impose an “undue burden” on women seeking abortions for a nonviable fetus; viability outside the womb begins around 24 weeks into gestation. However, a Supreme Court draft opinion leaked on May 2, 2022, suggests that the Court may soon overturn Roe and Casey. This would mean abortion would no longer be a federally protected right, leaving its regulation up to the states. Jeffrey Miron, a libertarian economist, argues that this is the least bad approach because it will likely reduce polarization in the country while preserving access to abortion services for most women.

Jeffrey Miron is vice president for research at the Cato Institute and director of graduate and undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University. He served as the chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston University from 1992 to 1998. His area of expertise is the economics of libertarianism, with emphasis on the economics of illegal drugs. He has advocated for many libertarian policies, including legalizing all drugs and allowing failing banks to go bankrupt. He has written three books, including Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition and Libertarianism, from A to Z. He received a BA in economics from Swarthmore College in 1979 and a PhD in economics from MIT in 1984.

Kathryn Tucker is the Co-Chair of the Psychedelic Practice Group at Emerge Law Group and a Founding Board Member & Co-Interim Executive Director at The Psychedelic Bar Association. She has served as an adjunct law professor at Lewis and Clark School of Law, Seattle University, the University of Washington, Loyola/LA and Hastings. In 1997, as legal director of Compassion & Choices, Tucker argued Washington v. Glucksberg before the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to establish a federal constitutional right to choose aid-in-dying. The Glucksberg case is widely recognized as prompting widespread effort to improve end-of-life care. Tucker attended Hampshire College and Georgetown Law School.

As a partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, Michael Delikat is an industry leader in the field of unemployment law. He brings over thirty years of experience to the legal profession, and he is renowned for his legal acumen concerning whistleblower and sexual harassment claims. Michael is also a proud graduate of Harvard Law School.

Congressman Jamie Raskin (BA ‘83, JD ‘87) represents Maryland’s 8th Congressional District. In the House of Representatives, Raskin served as the lead impeachment manager for President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial and serves on six committees, including the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Prior to his time in Congress, Raskin was a Maryland State Senator and a constitutional law professor. In his new book Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy, he discusses his experience in the January 6th attack and the subsequent impeachment trial, shaped by grappling with the incredible grief of losing his son Tommy to suicide only a few days before.