Under current law, all “male citizens” and immigrants – regardless of legal status – between the ages of 18 and 26 are required to register with the Selective Service System, the agency responsible for running the draft. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, a Democrat and former U.S. Air Force officer, wants to remove the word “male” from the bill and expand registration to all Americans, regardless of race, color, sex, or gender identity.
Expanding the draft to all genders has bipartisan support in Congress, but some of the strongest opposition comes from conservative lawmakers who argue that America’s “daughters, sisters, and wives” shouldn’t be forced to “fight our wars.”
The U.S. military hasn’t issued a draft order since 1973 and is unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future. Previously, women were ineligible for the draft because of military rules related to combat, but those rules have changed. Still, the country remains divided on who should be eligible.
“The military draft system hasn’t been used to enlist Americans in decades – I hope it stays that way,” Houlahan said in a statement. “But should our nation face a cataclysmic event that necessitates a draft, we must be prepared for all hands on deck. That includes women.”
Everyone, including women, would be required to register with the Selective Service System when they turn 18. However, registering doesn’t mean mandatory military service. Conscription has only been used a handful of times, most recently during the Vietnam War.
Kara Dixon Vuic, who studies gender and the U.S. military at Texas Christian University, said passing the amendment would be “huge, even though largely symbolic” when it comes to the fight for women’s rights and gender equality in the military.
“Right now, the only legal difference between what men and women do as civilians is that men register for the draft,” said Vuic, who is currently writing a book about the history of draft eligibility in the country. “It’s not that women don’t have to; it’s that they can’t.”
In 1980, when the Carter administration sought to reactivate the draft, a group of men filed a lawsuit, arguing that the law violated the Fifth Amendment and supported sex discrimination. The following year, the Supreme Court ruled that because women were barred from combat roles, they could also be excluded from the draft.
The ban on women serving in combat roles was lifted in 2013. Since then, a change in the draft policy has been widely anticipated.
The U.S. has maintained an all-volunteer military for nearly 50 years and recently ended its longest war without needing a draft.
“We fight differently now,” Vuic said. “Most people who think about this kind of thing don’t think there will ever be another draft. The kind of huge land army and full-scale invasions seem to be gone. Our technology, weaponry, and aims are different.”
Historically, the draft has disproportionately impacted lower-middle-class, single men – those who had fewer options. Those who were married, responsible for dependents, or pursuing college courses were eligible for exemptions. In an effort to ensure a fairer and more equitable system, the Nixon administration ordered a lottery system in the late 1960s.
If Congress and the president suddenly reinstated the draft today, the Selective Service System would conduct a lottery to determine who gets drafted – prioritizing the 20-25 age group, according to the agency.
Even if a woman were randomly chosen to serve, Vuic said, they still likely wouldn’t be placed in active combat. Most of the men drafted in World War II, she added, weren’t sent to the front lines because there was a higher need to fill supporting roles, including those in intelligence, science, engineering, healthcare, and aviation.
There have been different iterations of compulsory military service throughout U.S. history, but drafts are fairly rare and always controversial, Vuic said. Many believe conscription is an overreach or abuse of federal power over civilians’ freedoms.
Under British rule, each colony established its own militia comprised of adult men. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington struggled to attract enough soldiers with cash and promises of land. After the war, as the country’s first commander in chief, Washington tried and failed to pass legislation to register all males for military service.
It wasn’t until the Civil War in the 1860s, when Congress gave President Abraham Lincoln the authority to require the enrollment of all able-bodied men between the ages of 20 and 45. The Confederacy also passed its own conscription law, requiring all white men – and later enslaved men – from 17 to 50 to serve three years.
Congress again authorized conscription during the Spanish-American War in 1898 and in both world wars. During World War I, the Selective Service Act of 1917 spurred a wave of protests. Tens of thousands of men applied for exemptions, hundreds of thousands failed to register entirely, and more than 75,000 were arrested in New York. There was less resistance in 1940, as the U.S. cautiously watched World War II unfold. After the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, lawmakers gave the president the power to send draftees around the world. Later, again in 1948 as the Cold War escalated, President Harry Truman reinstated the draft for men aged 19 to 26.
By 1965, opposition to the war in Vietnam and anti-draft protests spread throughout college campuses and military centers. In the following years, thousands of young men destroyed their draft cards or left the country. The Selective Service Act expired in 1973 and ended the government’s ability to enforce the draft.
In 1980, the Selective Service System was revived, but the U.S. continued to operate an all-volunteer policy. There have been repeated efforts in Congress to include women, including in 2014 and 2015. Then, in 2017, the Senate passed the annual defense authorization act but a requirement to include women was later removed while the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service studied the issue. The commission released its final report in 2020 and recommended requiring women to register for the draft.
According to a 2021 Ipsos poll, overall support for drafting women has declined in recent years. In 2016, 63% of Americans supported drafting women in the event Congress reinstated the draft. Now, that number is 45% – with more than half of men and roughly a third of women in favor.
Meanwhile, many experts and female veterans welcome a move toward equality in the military.
Suzanne Chod, a professor of political science at North Central College in Illinois, said there’s no strong public support for requiring women to register for the draft. Although a bipartisan issue, support still tends to follow party lines, with Democrats more likely to self-identify as feminists who support full gender equality, she added.
Jen Burch, a 34-year-old Air Force veteran who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, said she supports the change, along with most women in the military. Women are the fastest-growing group of veterans and more than 300,000 women have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“It’s another step in furthering women to be equal, to have equal responsibility,” Burch said. “Women are just as capable as men and should be a part of the draft.”
Republican Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, a former Army Green Beret, has spoken out in support of Houlahan’s amendment. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, a Democrat, and Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a Republican and the first female combat veteran elected to the Senate, have also publicly supported the change.
The draft amendment isn’t guaranteed to pass.
Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and about a dozen other Republicans – including Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton and John Boozman of Arkansas, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, and Mike Lee of Utah – are working to remove it from the NDAA.
“Allowing American women to choose this service is one thing, but forcing our daughters, sisters, & wives to do so is quite another,” Hawley tweeted. “Missourians feel strongly that forcing women into our wars is wrong & so do I.”
Cotton said he will work to strip the amendment before the defense bill passes. The military has “welcomed women for decades & is stronger for it. But America’s daughters shouldn’t be forced to fight against their will,” he said on Twitter.
If passed, the law would bring the U.S. closer to the same standard held by other countries, Vuic said. In Norway and Sweden, military conscription or some form of national service is required of everyone. In Israel and North Korea, women are expected to serve but with caveats, including those explicitly prohibiting combat roles.
“The military relies on women in service,” Vuic said. “Those who oppose women being drafted are not saying no to women in the military altogether – just the draft, and especially combat draft. That argument combines a socially and culturally conservative idea that to me, says that they don’t see men and women as fundamentally equal.”
