Female draft requirement advances in Congress

Conservatives surprised by success of proposal

WASHINGTON — Congress is on the verge of ordering young women to register for a military draft for the first time in history, touching off outrage among social conservatives who fear the move is another step toward blurring gender lines.

The female draft requirement, approved late Thursday by the Senate Armed Services Committee, could be as heated as the divisive debate over what public lavatories and locker rooms transgender people should use.

Opponents of expanding the draft may be unable to halt the momentum in favor of lifting the exclusion, which was triggered by the Pentagon’s decision late last year to open all front-line combat jobs to women. After gender restrictions to military service were erased, the top uniformed officers in each of the military branches expressed support during congressional testimony for including women in a potential draft.

The Senate Armed Services Committee added a provision to its version of the annual defense policy bill that calls for women to sign up with the Selective Service within 30 days of turning 18 — just as men are — starting in January 2018, according to a summary of the legislation released by the committee.

The House Armed Services Committee narrowly adopted a provision to its bill late last month to include women in Selective Service.

“This is a highly consequential — and, for many American families, a deeply controversial — decision that deserves to be resolved by Congress after a robust and transparent debate in front of the American people, instead of buried in an embargoed document that is passed every year to fund military pay and benefits,” said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, one of three Senate Armed Services Committee members who voted against the policy bill.

Conservative columnist Daniel Horowitz wrote of the “consequences of completely eradicating the self-evident truth and science of the two sexes.”

The full House is expected to take up its version of the legislation as early as next week. The Senate will consider its bill later this month.

While the subject is contentious, a return to forcing people to join the armed forces seems unlikely. Military leaders maintain the all-volunteer force is working and do not want a return to conscription. The United States has not had a military draft since 1973, in the waning years of the Vietnam War era. Still, all men between the ages of 18 and 25 are required by law to register.

“It’s what a man’s got to do,” the Selective Service website says.

Women were nearly drafted during World War II because of a shortage of military nurses. But a surge of volunteers made it unnecessary, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who served with the Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he believes most Americans don’t want women to be drafted. Despite his objections, Hunter proposed — and then voted against — the amendment requiring women to register that the House Armed Services Committee approved in April.

Hunter said he offered the measure to force a discussion about how the Pentagon’s decision to void gender restrictions on military service failed to consider whether the exclusion on drafting women also should be lifted. Like Lee, he argued that the call should be made by Congress.

Duncan Hunter