Both.
Sadly, and current conflict aside, I think there will be a day where a non-nuclear WWIII will erupt, and we’ll have to start another draft. While current US policy doesn’t allow females in direct combat positions (with the exception of aviation), we still need good people to fill a variety of combat and combat support roles.
Tripler
There are some times I feel that 18 months of civil service (or military) should be made mandatory, but that’s an argument for another day.
Thanks for trying, but I’m still not buying it. 
If one assumes the same number of people will be drafted, but the genders equally represented, I don’t think this is a huge worry. We only need a few hundred thousand women left for fantastic genetic diversity (far greater than most isolated human societies ever had historically), and unless things monumentally change, we’re not going to be drafting 145,000,000 women anytime soon. Not to mention that we could harvest a few hundred eggs from our soldiers and just keep grandmothers around as incubators, if we want to get truly Orwellian about it.
Several ways to handle it. Easiest would be to make contraceptive implants mandatory while serving. For draft-dodgers who become pregnant to avoid the draft, let them sit out their 9 months (or maybe 20 months, if we really mean to promote breastfeeding at the same time) and then serve. Baby goes to grandma or dad or foster care. Men didn’t get out of service because their wives were pregnant or had newborns.
Ok, this is just some screwed up priorities, to me. Rape worse than death? Riiiight. Don’t get me wrong, there are fates worse than death, but I just think anyone who still thinks a woman in irrevocably ruined by being a rape victim has far worse issues to deal with.
Now this part, I agree with! However, I’m sure there were lots and lots of MEN (and still are) that agree with us and have to register anyway.
Bottom line for is is that it really should be either or none. There are no compelling reasons that women can’t serve, especially in these days of excellent contraception and high quality infant formulas.
And I also agree that this might just be what’s needed to cause enough pressure to eliminate the draft entirely. I’m ambivalent as to whether or not that would be a good thing. I don’t think anyone should have to kill against their conscience, but I do think most people, as well as society as a whole, would benefit from mandatory service in some capacity, even if it’s as a cook, a clerk or technical support stateside.
Interestingly enough, if you come across the Selective Service online registration page, you will notice that they have an option to choose your gender. If you’re really observant, you’ll notice the bracketed text next to the female option explaining that due to current laws, females are not allowed to register for Selective Service. :dubious:
And what good does this do? Someone still gets called. It would only increase the size of the draft base, which I think encourages warmaking. It doesn’t reduce the chance that anybody dies, it just reduces the chance that a man dies.
Mmmm, straw. I didn’t say they’re incapable, I said they shouldn’t have to register. As I said, it is not right to use the guise of equality force them to do something that is wrong.
Because it’s fair. Anything other is pure sexism, and I haven’t yet read a convincing argument as to why this should be the status quo.
Because two wrongs don’t make a right.
For me, the issue of whether women should be treated differently in the event of an actual draft is entirely separate and much more complicated than the issue of whether women should have to register for the present non-draft. Women should have to register so that 90% of college applications have someone dutifully checking the “Yes, I’m registered box” rather than 40 % checking the “yes, I’m registered” box, 50% checking the “No, I’m not registered because I’m female and I don’t have to register” box and 10% checking the “No, I’m not registered because I’m old, foreign, or whatever else one can use as an escape clause” box.
Or else no one should have to register, because the present register accomplishes little but creating paperwork.
And one wrong does?
I was a teenager and old enough to register when they first had people register for the draft, or at least that’s what my memory tells me. My opinion then and now is the same.
If men have to register, so should women. If we women want equality, and this feminist certainly does, then we take the bad with the good, and that includes registering for the draft.
Yes, and while we’re at it let’s finally pass the Equal Right Amendment and actually have equality under the law in the United States.
I served my time, 6 years active and 2 years in the IRR, so I’m either more or less likely to get drafted than the rest of you. Can we say, “Back door draft”? I thought we could.
"SECTION 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
"SEC. 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
“SEC. 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.”
And a man who never wanted to go to war in the first place getting captured by the enemy and raped is somehow less tragic or merits less bad press? :dubious:
And the whole “woman are neaded to bear children so they shouldn’t be drafted” only makes sense if the government were to maintain a registry of women of childbearing, selects women at random for compulsory pregnancy, and imprisons every woman who refused to submit to forcible impregnation.
What if, in the United States, only white people were eligible for the draft? Or only Latinos, or African Americans, or whatever? Would you therefore still oppose the broadening of the draft to all races on the grounds that “two wrongs don’t make a right”?
Yes, I’m in favor of sexual equality in Selective Service.
Yes.
Though, why does anyone have to “register” these days? Isn’t the fact that someone’s 18 on some computer somewhere? Why bother making people take the extra step and register - shouldn’t they just become eligible at 18 automatically? But yes, both should register, or become eligible, or whatever.
The usual point(s) about the need for women to breed:
Even if through some horrible bloodbath 25% of women of childbearing age were wiped out, the remaining 75% would need only to up their “productivity” by a third - an extra child all round would more than make up the next generation.
In previous wars where the male population has taken a huge hit, there has not been a vast increase in unmarried motherhood as a result (this is IMHO so rather than cite, I’ll just invite anyone to counter-cite if I’m wrong, and my retraction in advance is a given), so preserving a large reserve of women is not only unnecessary but historically ineffective.
In some cases it is automatic. Some states transmit info from their DMV or voter registry to SSS. I never actually registerd, I just got a card in the mail saying I was registered and not to destroy it. I flushed it down the toilet.
As it stands, as stated in the op, we don’t draft men, but we still make them register just in case we reinstate the draft. So, as it stands, we shouldn’t require women to register: they can’t get drafted, so there’s no need to require registration.
If we change the draft so that women can get drafted, we will have to require them to register.
How is this a debate?
As it stands men can’t get drafted either since there’s no law authorizing a draft in place.
This is my opinion only, and is in no way the view of the Selective Service System.
I think registration should be limited to males and to people trained as doctors, nurses, paramedics, pharmacists, and other medical technologists. Those people, male and female, ought to register.
This would make them available in the event of a special skills draft, which has happened before.
I’m opposed to anyone having to register (especially since there are 1000 other ways for the gov to track you if they need you later), but I do think that it would be bad law to add women to the draft pool, if only because they have a ‘get out of jail card’ built in- pregnancy. I’ve spoken to several women who said they’d have no problem with getting pregnant in order to avoid having to go to war. I have an issue with laws that are, by nature, going to be impossible to enforce, or allow for such an easy means of civil disobedience. And good luck with trying to enlist them right after the baby is born- if you can get any politico or the public to back this, we’re either in real trouble as a nation militarily, or we’ve devolved into a totally fascist state.
And I don’t think you can underestimate the psychological impact or rape on the public or the military. It really is seen as a fate worse than death, and the worst form of torture, to many men. Silly, perhaps. But it’s there. Of course, this would only really come into play if women were sent to the front lines.
As repugnant as I find the idea of war, as horrified as I would be to have to fight in one I feel is unjust, how can I sit here and say, “No, women should not have to register for the draft… because I wouldn’t like it.” What a lousy excuse. I hate that the draft exists and I always will… but as long as it does exist, everyone should be required to register.