Should women be required to register for the draft?
The 360 is a feature designed to show you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories.
Speed read
Who & Where: Women and men in the United States
What: Men between the ages of 18 to 25 must register with the Selective Service System, a U.S. government agency that manages information about citizens who may be called to serve in a military draft. Women are not required to register with Selective Service.
When: The Selective Service System was founded in 1917. In 1981, the Supreme Court ruled that the male-only draft was “fully justified” because women were ineligible to participate combat roles. In 2015, the Pentagon lifted all restrictions for women serving in the military, which allows them to serve in all capacities, including combat.
In February a federal judge in Texas ruled that the all-male military draft is unconstitutional, in a gender-discrimination case brought by the National Coalition for Men, a men’s rights organization. And in a decision this week, another judge ruled that a suit filed by a 21-year-old New Jersey woman, who twice tried to register for Selective Service but was denied, can proceed.
Why: The recent legal challenges are increasing pressure on Congress to decide if the draft should apply equally to men and women and whether the requirement to register with Selective Service should exist at all.
The case of the New Jersey plaintiff, Elizabeth Kyle-Labell, could be significant because she’s asking for an order that would do one of three things: require women as well as men to register, make registration voluntary for both sexes, or abolish Selective Service registration entirely. Her attorney said the recent rulings increase the likelihood the case could reach the Supreme Court.
What’s next: The National Commission on Military, National and Public Service, an 11-member panel created by Congress, is currently studying the future of the military draft. There are 2 main questions: Does the United State still need Selective Service at all? If so, should women be required to register with Selective Service?
In its interim report in January, the commission gave no hints about how it will side on those issues and says it’s seeking input from the public. But commission chairman Joe Heck said, “I don’t think we will remain with the status quo.” The commission’s final report is due to be released March 2020.
Perspectives
A military draft should include both men and women equally.
“Requiring women to register will not make the military a social laboratory any more than it has always been one. … But whatever the eventual system, women must be included equally. We can’t exclude an entire class of Americans from the obligations and benefits of citizenship. Our society requires it. So does our national defense. As one of our most famous soldiers, Dwight D. Eisenhower, said about women in 1948, “I am convinced that in another war they have got to be drafted just like men. I am convinced of that.” — Kara Dixon Vuic, associate professor of history at Texas Christian University, Washington Post
“Young people today are far less engaged in world events than during the Vietnam era, largely because the threat of being drafted into war doesn’t loom nearly as large. That threat has a way of impressing the gravity of war upon registrants, which is probably a good thing. As long as draft registration is in effect, it’s unfair to men and insulting to women that it remain gender-specific at a time when soldiering no longer is.” — Editorial, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Even if the Pentagon hadn’t made that decision, having a draft for only men would still have seemed dubious, given that the great majority of military jobs now require technical or other cognitive skills. As the judge wrote, ‘In the nearly four decades since [the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a men-only draft], women’s opportunities in the military have expanded dramatically.’… The male-only rule is an anachronism.” — Editorial, San Diego Union-Tribune
A civilized nation doesn’t force women to fight wars.
“A civilized nation does not force its women to fight its wars. This is a matter of moral common sense. The purpose of the U.S. military is, above all, to defend the public from external threats, so that we can live our lives in the freedom and thriving America uniquely allows. If our wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers can be conscripted to the front lines and forced to become either killers or the killed, then it’s unclear what we’re fighting for.” — Editorial, Washington Examiner
“This entire debate isn’t really about military preparedness but is about social engineering — changing the way people perceive things so that they can be arranged according to the designs of a relatively very few. … Progressives will twist themselves into balloon poodles trying to codify gender differences, but heaven forbid we should speak of sex differences, not to mention cultural adaptations to better ensure survival of the species. … I’m going to go out on a limb and simply say that a civilized nation doesn’t put its women in combat where they have an unequal ability to survive.” — Kathleen Parker, Washington Post
Having equal rights requires that we shoulder equal responsibilities.
“With equal rights and equal opportunity come equal responsibilities. If men have to register with the Selective Service, women should, too. Likewise, both genders should be subjected to mandatory conscription should another draft ever be declared. The U.S. military has been all-volunteer since 1973. … There is no question of women’s valor or competence on the battlefield, now or long ago. … If there is to be a “Selective” Service, it should be “Universal” Service. Congress — especially the barrier-breaking women of this 116th Congress — should smash through this barrier to the fullness of American citizenship.” — Editorial, Pittsburgh-Post Gazette
“I would urge the commissioners to recommend that both men and women be required to register with the Selective Service System, and that the system be retained in the interests of equality and national security. I also would urge the commissioners to support forms of public service that maximize universal access and limited universal expectation. I would hope that the commission would reject universally obligated service because of financial, social, legal and national security issues.” — Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich, retired from U.S. Army in 2006 after more than 35 years of service, The Hill
Selective Service is outdated and unnecessary.
“It’s long past time for Congress to reconsider the Selective Service System. Registration is a vestige of a very different era, when young men could be conscripted to serve in the military involuntarily. The U.S. ended the draft and shifted to an all-volunteer military in 1973, after public support for conscription had dwindled amid the bloody, years-long Vietnam War. … Yes, of course, women have a civic duty just like men and should be called upon to serve if that time of need comes. But progress isn’t adding women to what may be an obsolete draft registry system. Congress should fix the system first.” — Editorial, Los Angeles Times
“Why should anyone — male or female — have to register for the draft in 2019? The last man was drafted into military service in 1973. And yet today, male citizens and residents of the United States ages 18 through 25, including documented and undocumented immigrants, still must register for the draft — or risk fines and prison time. On paper, anyway. No one has been prosecuted for failing to register since 1986, the Congressional Research Service reported in January in a study of selective service and the draft issues for Congress. … So, if the Selective Service System is a dinosaur — and it is — let’s scrap it and dedicate our resources to making voluntary service a shared expectation.” — Marsha Mercer, The News & Advance
The military is no place for social experiments.
“But should women be drafted into the military instead of volunteering, one of two things will have to happen: either huge percentages of women will wash out of boot camp, or officers will have to introduce two standards—one for men, and one for women—that would severely compromise the combat-readiness of our military. This kind of gender politics, like the underlying postmodern worldview it’s based on, doesn’t align with reality. It expects reality to align with it, something reality consistently refuses to do. The battlefield brings with it a rude introduction to reality. It’s not the place to turn our military into a social experiment.” — John Stonestreet and G. Shane Morris, BreakPoint
Drafting women ignores differences for combat role.
War is about defeating an enemy through superior power, about achieving victory with minimal losses. It is a fact that men are better physically endowed for traditional ground combat than women. Of 36 women who have tried, only two have passed the U.S. Marine Corps’ legendary infantry-officer training course. Apart from reasons of “political correctness,” why would our Armed Forces actually want an infantry in which a quarter of the troops were demonstrably more vulnerable than they have to be? It is only in countries where the danger of war is remote and battle readiness is a low priority that political and military elites indulge themselves in the luxury of policies based in gender dogmas instead of realism and the national interest.
— Barbara Kay, National Post
