Public Comment

Registering Women for the Draft: Equality in Barbarism?

Gar Smith
Sunday June 13, 2021 - 06:10:00 PM

A world in which women can be drafted? That doesn't register.

A gender-neutral draft is being saluted as a victory for women's rights, an open door that promises a new platform for equal opportunity with men. In this case, an equal opportunity to shoot, bomb, burn and kill other human beings.

Women may soon be faced by a new legal requirement that they must register with the Pentagon when they turn 18. Just like men.

Is it sexist and unfair that young women have not been compelled to register for the Pentagon's (retired but still revivable) military draft? What is the thinking here? 

In February 2019, a federal judge ruled that a male-only draft was unconstitutional, accepting a plaintiff's argument that the draft invoked "sex discrimination" in violation of the 14th Amendment’s "equal protection" clause.  

This is the same "equal protection" clause that has been used to extend and enforce reproductive rights, election rights, racial equality, election fairness, and educational opportunity. 

Citing the 14th Amendment to justify forced conscription seems to run counter to the concept of "protection." It's less a case of "equal opportunity" and more a case of "equal jeopardy." 

The male-only draft has been called "one of the last sex-based classifications in federal law" but the US Supreme Court has opted not to rule on the issue, choosing to await action from Congress. 

American Civil Liberties Union lawyers have taken the lead in demanding that both women and men should be treated equally when it comes to draft registration and I agree. I believe that neither men nor women should be compelled to register for military duty. 

The Selective Service System is unconstitutional not because it fails to require women to be trained to fight and kill: it is unconstitutional because it requires any citizen to register to be trained to fight and kill. 

Despite the euphemism, the SSS is not a "service" but a "chore" and it is "selective" on the part of the recruiters, not "elective" on the part of potential inductees. 

The draft is a form of forced enslavement that has no part in a country that claims to be founded on "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Constitution is clear. The 13th Amendment's Section 1 declared: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude . . . shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Forcing young men to become soldiers (and sentencing them to lengthy jail terms for refusing to do so) is clearly a case of "involuntary servitude." 

But wait! The Constitution is actually not so clear. The kicker is in the ellipsis. Section 1 includes an exemption. The missing "…" stipulates that citizens can still be treated as slaves "as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have bee duly convicted." 

According to Section 1, the only citizens who can be legally compelled to defend "the land of the free" are convicts serving time in US prisons. Traditionally, however, conscripted jailbirds have only been enslaved to build county roads and to fight wildfires. 

The US has the world's largest inmate population, with 2.2 million prisoners. That makes America the host of the largest legally enslaved population on the planet. In today's Prison-Industrial-Compex, prisoners are required to provide free labor for Corporate America—ranging from mining operations and agriculture to manufacturing military weapons, serving as call-service operators, and sewing undergarments for Victoria's Secret. If they refuse these assignments, inmates can be punished with solitary confinement, loss of credit for "time served," or suspension of family visits. 

In 1916, the Supreme Court ruled (Butler v. Perry) that free citizens could be conscripted for unpaid labor involved in the construction of public roads. In fact, the language of the 13th Amendment was copied from a 1787 Northwest Territories ordinance that outlawed slavery but required "every male inhabitant of sixteen years of age and upwards" to show up for unpaid roadwork "on being duly warned to work on the highways by the supervisor in the township to which such inhabitant may belong." (And, yes, most of the prisoners who served on "chain gangs" up through the 20th Century, were engaged in unpaid road-work.) 

A 1792 revision of the road-repair mandate reduced the target population to males between the ages of 21-50 years, and reduced the period of servitude to "perform two days work on the public roads." 

The US is not alone in compelling its "free citizens" to serve as soldiers. At the present time, 83 countries—fewer than a third of the world's nations—have a draft. Most do not include women. 

Many nations with armed forces (including most NATO and European Union states) do not rely on conscription to compel enlistments. Instead, they provide the promise of well-paying military careers to attract recruits 

One surprising exception is Sweden, a "feminist" friendly nation that abolished the draft in 2010. Recently, Sweden's left-tilting leaders have revived compulsory military service by introducing a draft that, for the first time, applies to both men and women. The government argues that “modern conscription is gender neutral and will include both women and men" but, according to Sweden's defense minister, the real reason for the change was not gender equality but under-enlistments due to "a deteriorating security environment in Europe and around Sweden." 

If this is to become the new standard for gender equity, the Supreme Court may someday be called upon to require the National Football League to include women it its NFL draft. If women are deemed eligible for equal standing on the field of battle, consistency would require that they be guaranteed the same opportunities to perform and compete on the nation's football fields. 

In the interest of gender equality, let's end draft registration for both women and men. Congress is supposed to have the say in decisions of war and peace. In a democracy, people must remain free to determine whether or not they wish to support a war. If enough refuse: no war.