Women drafted to serve in the U.S. Army during wartime

¶ … Women be Drafted to Serve in the Military?

Opinions vary on whether women should be drafted to serve in the military, or in particular, in the U.S. Army. Women currently serve in the U.S. Army and even on the front lines. But should they be drafted, if the country makes conscription legal again? This paper points to legal opinions and public opinions on this controversial topic.

The Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces (PCAWAF) commissioned the Roper polling organization to conduct research on attitudes from civilians and people in the military regarding opening the draft for women. The year was 1992, according to author Patrick J. Egan. In Egan's book he reports that the PCAWAF polling research revealed that 52% of the public supported "drafting women in the event of national emergency or threat of war" (Egan, 2008, p. 156). Some 39% of those polled were opposed to including women in military conscription, Egan reports.

The general feeling among those polled was that overall they preferred women go into the military voluntarily. Civilians were "more supportive of women serving in combat than were military personnel," the survey revealed. The most supportive branch of the military was the Navy (they support "equal roles for women," Egan explains on page 156); the next most supportive branch was the Air Force, followed by the U.S. Army. The Marines were "in a distant last place," Egan continued on page 156.

Egan's own research shows that over the past twenty years, the "structure of opinion on women and the draft… remains largely unchanged." For example, in 1982, 50.7% of all respondents supported women being drafted; in 1991 that figure stood at 51.5% and in 2003 it dipped slightly to 48.6%. It is interesting that African-Americans' views on women being drafted didn't change much between 1982 (39.2% supported women being drafted) and 2003 (40.8%) but in both cases fewer Black participants than white participants supported women in the draft. Some 54.5% of Caucasians in 1982 supported women being drafted and in 2003 that figure slipped a bit to 49%.

Meanwhile the Supreme Court has weighed in on the subject of women and the draft in 1981. When President Jimmy Carter reactivated the draft in 1980 -- in response to the Soviet Union's aggression in Afghanistan -- Congress only agreed to reactivate funds necessarily for males to be drafted. Several men challenged the constitutionality of the Military Selective Service Act and a U.S. district court "invalidated the male-only registration, holding that the 'availability of women registrants would materially increase flexibility, not hamper it'" (Kuersten, 2003, p. 27). However, the High Court disagreed with the district court. The Court held that since "Congress is given great deference to legislate in areas of national defense and military affairs"; and since Congress believes "men only is necessary"; and moreover Congress does not have to be concerned with "equity between the sexes" because it is "reasonable for Congress to conclude that combat-readiness precludes registration of women" (Kuersten, p. 27).