Republicans are making a last-minute move to stop House Democrats from expanding registration with Selective Service to include women. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) introduced the 2022 defense bill that included women in future military drafts.
Houlahan said that including women in future drafts would draw on the talents of the “entire nation.” Only one-third of American women support drafting women into the military.
Many Republicans strongly oppose the proposed amendment, claiming that it is unnecessary to include women in a compulsory draft, given that women are already fully eligible to join the volunteer forces.
Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) is a House Armed Services Committee member and said that the amendment is a “solution in search of a problem.” She feels confident that American women will volunteer “as needed” in a national emergency.
Hartzler added that the country does not need to include women in the draft to “have equality in this nation.”
Terry Schilling is the president of the American Principle Project and argues that Republicans should block the measure to avoid further politicization of U.S. military forces. Schilling stated that a compulsory draft of the nation’s “mothers, sisters, and daughters” would not make them “equal.”
Schilling added a “massive difference” in involuntary and forced military service for women, adding that a draft would put women into “combat roles against their will.” After the “recent debacle” in Afghanistan, he also said that Republicans should oppose further attempts to bring politics into the military and that defense funding should be “narrowly aimed at only those things which improve” national defense.
The House Freedom Caucus opposes the amendment and is urging Republican leadership to block the measure. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is a caucus member and said that the debate about keeping or abolishing Selective Service should not allow Congress to “force women into war.”
Roy said that Democrats are “at war with Americans” and that Republicans will lose politically by doing “something really, really dumb” by voting to “draft our daughters.”
