American women will soon become eligible (in theory) for the draft
By
Editor -
September 16, 2021
September 18, 2021
Washington, DC
mWAR ADMINISTRATION is a distant prospect in America. But if military service were declared, the country’s conscripts could soon look very different. An amendment to the annual defense policy bill that goes through Congress would for the first time call women into question for conscription. On September 2, the House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee passed it. “The time has come,” said Congressman Chrissy Houlahan, a former Air Force officer and main sponsor of the change. Coupled with the success of a similar provision in the Senate, the change is now almost certain when the final bill is voted on.
Although conscription ended in 1973, controversy arose over who could be called up for service. The draft was so unpopular after the Vietnam War that after 1975 men no longer even had to register for the Selective Service, the directory of those entitled to draft. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 caused President Jimmy Carter to reintroduce the need for men, but Congress was reluctant to include women. The decision of the Rostker Supreme Court against Goldberg in 1981 determined that women could be excluded from electoral service because they were not allowed to take on combat functions. That argument seemed thin before Leigh Ann Hester became the first woman to receive the Silver Star for direct combat in 2005 after her convoy was ambushed in Iraq.
https://thelawnewsnetwork.com/american-women-will-soon-become-eligible-in-theory-for-the-draft/
