There’s a “Rent” dispute raging through some unlikely places. It’s not about housing rights, but about a rite of passage—the high school musical—and what constitutes a responsible show for teens to stage. When it comes to responsibility in the arts, who should decide what’s appropriate?... Read full article

Does being your brother’s keeper mean you have to pay his mortgage? In the new era of billion dollar bailouts, Americans across the country are re-examining long-held views about personal responsibility with a question that’s hitting close to home: Is it fair to make people who faithfully paid their mortgages bail out those who didn’t?... Read full article

Sir Lancelot was a yellow Lab that loved bagels, pillows, and shoes. His death last year from skin cancer devastated his owners, who later turned his DNA over to a company that clones pets. When the new clone arrived, so did the criticism. Is paying $155,000 to clone a dead pet responsible, irresponsible, or something else altogether?... Read full article

Two new legal commandments – Thou shalt not smoke in thy apartment and Thou shalt inform authorities of anyone who does – have made the town of Belmont, California, home to America’s most restrictive secondhand smoking law. How far should government go in determining what you can do in the privacy of your home?... Read full article

One single mother. 8 newborn octuplets. 14 total offspring. 15 minutes of fame. Thousands of people have expressed outrage at Nadya Suleman, America’s most well-known mother. But should the usually private matter of reproduction be the subject of such public debate?... Read full article

It was the score heard ‘round the world: 100 – 0. When a Texas basketball collided with this American aphorism—It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game—there was an explosion of conflicting opinions about the true meaning of victory and doing the right thing.... Read full article

The Responsibility Project and Parade magazine recently partnered to create “Doing What’s Right,” a special insert designed to spark conversations about everyday moral choices and personal responsibility. Here’s how readers responded to a series of questions. What do you think?... Read full article

Is it irresponsible to allow fighting in ice hockey? That’s the guts of an icy-hot debate about the continued role of brawling in hockey, sparked by the recent death of a 21-year-old Canadian player.... Read full article

In a snow season marked by killer avalanches—13 dead in the U.S., including 10 skiers or snowboarders who were “out-of-bounds”—an icy issue has sparked a heated debate: should there be tougher legal consequences for sneaking away from groomed slopes to make fresh tracks in unpatrolled areas? And should rogue skiers and boarders have to pay for their own rescues?... Read full article

On Halloween night four years ago in Los Angeles, a car slammed into a light pole at 45 mph, critically injuring a young woman and leaving her a paraplegic. Also shattered in the accident was the very definition of what it means to be a Good Samaritan, undermined by a troubling new legal question: Can you be sued for trying to save someone’s life?... Read full article