Why should women be exempt from draft?
At this moment, a draft is theoretical. The United States has not compelled citizens to serve in the armed forces for nearly 50 years. But the specter of military conscription has been raised over the years during moments of extreme international tension. In 1980, after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, then-President Carter raised the possibility of a draft and reinstated mandatory registration, which had lapsed after Vietnam. (Three years earlier, he had pardoned thousands of young men who had opposed the Vietnam War and evaded the draft, many by moving to Canada.) The idea surfaced again in 2007 when conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan had our military stretched thin. During the Trump years, the presidents bellicose posturing against North Korea and Iraq led some to wonder about the possibility of yet another military conflict. In February 2020, after a high-ranking Iranian military official, Qassem Suleimani, was killed by a U.S. airstrike and Iran threatened to retaliate, the hashtag #WorldWarIII trended on social media along with rumors about a draft. Perhaps the more interesting question is whether there should be military registration at all.