The Political Interest Who Owes What to Whom?

By Michael Kramer

Having babies is not Darlene Johnson's problem. Raising them is. Until recently, Johnson, 28, was in a California prison for having beaten two of her four children with a belt and an electric cord. What makes the Johnson case unusual is not the nature of her crime, which is all too common, but the choice offered her by the sentencing judge in Tulare County: the chance to cut her jail time if she agreed to the surgical implantation of Norplant, the new birth-control device that prevents conception for up to five years. That choice, which Johnson accepted and which many perceive as coercive, despite the ease with which Norplant can be removed, highlights a growing national debate about the proper balance between competing interests: the desire to protect individual liberties while recognizing a citizen's obligations to the community, and society's interest in encouraging, and in some instances forcing, responsible behavior.

Bolstered by polls that show strong support for their proposals, legislators in several states have introduced bills that would require convicted female drug addicts to choose between Norplant and jail.

"Reproductive freedom is an important right," says Kansas state representative Kerry Patrick, "but a child's right to be born healthy is paramount over a woman's right to bear a drug-impaired baby. And we, the community, have a right to be spared unnecessary costs. Simply to provide welfare payments and education from kindergarten through the 12th grade for a healthy child costs $205,000 in Kansas, a figure that climbs astronomically if that kid is born drugged."

The same conflict arises in the controversy over testing hospital patients for AIDS. Some people argue for mandatory testing; others insist that it be voluntary. But both groups seem concerned only with the patient's rights. "No one on either side wonders if the patient has a responsibility to his fellow human beings," says George Washington University sociologist Amitai Etzioni. "The language focuses almost exclusively on individual rights, which are quickly described as absolute and which are then disconnected from societal obligations."

To Etzioni and his followers, the question is how best to promote responsibility before imposing it. "In the end, free people are going to decide for themselves how to act," says Roger Conner of the American Alliance for Rights & Responsibilities, a bipartisan public-interest group. "How they feel about a duty that may be imposed on them is crucial. Way before something like Norplant is coerced, there has to be serious education and the widespread availability of birth control. If those conditions are met, there is a far greater possibility that both the individual and society will accept imposition. A regime that reaches for the penalty first is close to being a police state."

There is much to noodle here, and there soon may also be the opportunity to see if these issues can support a presidential campaign. The leading Democratic advocate of civic obligation is Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, who announced his candidacy last week. Beyond sharing the views of Etzioni and Conner, Clinton has actually succeeded in having some of the "responsibilities" philosophy codified in law. For example, Arkansas parents who fail to attend parent-teacher conferences can be fined, and students who drop out of school are denied driver's licenses. "Not everything we do that is wrong is illegal," says Clinton. "The trick is to provide the incentives and disincentives that can curb such behavior."

In Clinton's mind, the driver's-license question is simple because driving is a privilege, not a right. "But there's even more to it," he says. "If you drop out of school, your earnings can be in free fall -- that is if you're lucky enough to get a job in the first place. You end up dragging down the whole society. You cost us more than you contribute. So obviously we have the right to attach conditions designed to keep you in school."

Clinton acknowledges that some see parental fines as clashing with the right to public education, which he concedes is absolute. But, he observes, "everything has a context. It is clear that too many parents and students believe that all kids cannot learn or that their ability to learn is more a function of genetic makeup than of how much effort you put in. I think both those notions are wrong, so I believe anything society does to strengthen family responsibilities and give schools the chance to teach is acceptable. And given that parents are an integral part of a child's education, I don't see anything at all wrong in fining them for failing to do their part."

Many of Clinton's ideas, which include instituting a system of national service that would oblige youngsters to perform various community-based tasks in exchange for college assistance, are viewed by liberal Democrats as neo- Republican. So his task is difficult. Clinton's views may well appeal to voters in a general election, but they will surely be less attractive to the more liberal electorate that has controlled the Democratic Party's nominating process for 20 years.

The politics aside, an activist like Clinton would be better placed than a conservative to push the "responsibilities" agenda. Most Republicans see government as "the problem"; their views are "trapped by their antitax and antigovernment rhetoric," says Conner. "When they talk about rights and responsibilities, the red flags go up. People see them as being demanding without being supportive, as wanting to take without being willing to give." On the flip side, adds Conner, in an analysis Clinton shares, "liberals are going to have to realize that the only way to generate public support for expanding the programs they see people needing is to accept linking that help to some very tough disincentives, and even coercion, for those who don't understand that along with government's help come serious obligations."

Exactly.