I know many of you have strong feelings about this. It does have a long way to go, and is attached to the larger defense bill. This is a quandry as the left and feminist groups that kept arguing that women should be eligible for every job in the military, including combat (and I agree, if they can deliver at the same level as men). Now that they are, there is no reason to exclude them from the draft.
Maybe it’s not a bad idea to put Safe-Space Crybabies in the military. They’d learn a few things about discipline and accomplishment. In other words, they’d be forced to grow up.
On Tuesday, the Senate passed a defense authorization bill that would require young women to register for the draft — the latest development in a long-running debate over whether women should sign up for the Selective Service. The provision would apply to women turning 18 in 2018 or later and would impose the same requirements and rules that currently apply to men.
The policy is still far from being law. The House, after considering a similar provision earlier this spring, ultimately passed an authorization bill that omitted it; the two branches of Congress now must resolve the differences between their bills. And the bill faces a veto threat from President Obama over other elements of the legislation, such as the prohibition on closing down the Guantanamo Bay military prison.
But the bill’s passage brings women a step closer to Selective Service registration — a historic change that has bipartisan support in Congress but is firmly opposed by some conservative lawmakers.
For decades, the U.S. policy of having a draft for men, and not women, was approved as constitutional by the Supreme Court.
But as NPR’s David Welna reported last year, the court’s reasoning relied on the fact that women were barred from combat roles.
Now that women are eligible for combat duty, “Congress seems to have lost its court-endorsed rationale for limiting Selective Service registration to males only,” David wrote.
Influential lawmakers are on board for registering women — Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is one of them.
The defense authorization bill passed the Senate decisively on Tuesday, The Associated Press reports, with a final vote of 85 to 13.
The section dedicated to women and the draft was a small section of a lengthy bill authorizing $602 billion in defense spending.
President Obama has threatened a veto over several elements of the bill, which would block his administration from closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, deny the Pentagon its request to shut down surplus bases and limit the size of the president’s National Security Council, the AP reports.
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I think this is a ridiculous waste of time . Raising more questions than answers & should there be a draft it will cost more $$ have more issues causing a load of work for the military ! I have 3 daughters who would not have been able to pass tbe riggorsvof military training . This bill said the same requirements as men . Well women are not men . Now if a woman wants to volunteer its great . To make it a requirement is stupid . Don’t try to tell me women will not be thrown into combat either . Its the govt & it will be messed up .