While it isn’t often described as such, this strikes me as an issue of equal treatment under the law, as well as a big helping of sauce for the goose. Excerpt:
A federal judge in Texas has declared that the all-male military draft is unconstitutional, ruling that “the time has passed” for a debate on whether women belong in the military.
The decision deals the biggest legal blow to the Selective Service System since the Supreme Court upheld the draft in 1981. In Rostker v. Goldberg, the court ruled that the male-only draft was “fully justified” because women were ineligible for combat roles.
But U.S. District Judge Gray Miller ruled late Friday that while historical restrictions on women serving in combat “may have justified past discrimination,” men and women are now equally able to fight. In 2015, the Pentagon lifted all restrictions for women in military service.
The case was brought by the National Coalition For Men, a men’s rights group, and two men who argued the all-male draft was unfair.
Men who fail to register with the Selective Service System at their 18th birthday can be denied public benefits such as federal employment and student loans. Women cannot register for Selective Service.
I’m not in favor of allowing women to serve in Combat Arms units. Mrs. Animal, who had a military career spanning eight years and has a Bronze Star among her effects from that service, agrees. Women as a rule simply do not have the strength, endurance and tolerance of trauma that men do. There are also hygiene issues involved in having women in the field for prolonged periods, and in combat, there is also the issue that men will do reckless things to protect women. Deny it all you like, but that’s a fact. I’d have damn little time for any man who wouldn’t take risks to protect a woman.
But since we do have a Selective Service law, and since prominent women activists have been demanding access to women in traditionally all-male branches like Armor and Infantry, then fine – if you want that, you have to take all that comes with it, including a draft in the event of a major war.
What government does for anyone it must do for everyone, or it must do for no one.
Personally I would be in favor of doing away with Selective Service altogether. In our era of a high-tech, modern military that requires a fair amount of training to make soldiers proficient, a two-year conscription isn’t really enough time to produce a troop who is technically and tactically proficient. Further, the big advantage of a volunteer Army is that we have people who are serving not by order but by choice. Early in my own career in Uncle Sam’s colors there were plenty of NCOs and officers who remembered what it was like dealing with draftees, and to a man they never wanted to go back to those days.
But equal treatment under the law means just that – equal treatment under the law. I’m still not in favor of putting women in Combat Arms roles. But that doesn’t mean, should circumstances call for it, that we couldn’t conscript them into other roles, freeing up men to serve in combat. If we’re going to have a Selective Service law at all, then yes, it should apply to both sexes.
