Do you want your daughter to register for the draft?
It appears that American women may soon be required to register for the draft within 30 days of their eighteenth birthdays.
IWF Senior Fellow Amber Smith, a former U.S. Army Kiowa Warrior helicopter pilot-in-command and Air Mission Commander, addresses this issue over at The Federalist.
Previously, she notes, it was held constitutional that the Selective Service Act required only men to register for the draft because only men could fight on the front lines. She writes:
Here’s where the problem lies. Now that the restriction on women in combat has been lifted and women can fill those combat jobs, the law has now become discriminatory towards men.
This is no longer an issue of whether or not women are capable, whether women will make the military stronger, or if they will be able to make the same standards—those are all issues that surrounded Carter’s decision to lift the combat restrictions for women. But the decision has been made. Now that women are allowed to serve in combat, the issue is now that the Selective Service law is discriminatory for only requiring men to register.
Amber supports requiring women to register for the draft:
As a woman who served over seven and a half years in the Army as a light attack/reconnaissance Kiowa Warrior helicopter pilot and was in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, I fully support removing gender-based restrictions for combat jobs in the military and allowing women to have the opportunity to apply for combat jobs as long as all mission and physical standards remain the same as they do for men.
This means I also support Congress amending the Selective Service law to require all eligible men and women in this country to register for the draft. You don’t get to pick and chose when equality applies to you. Since women are now allowed to try out for the same specialized combat jobs as men, women should have the same draft requirement. That’s what equality looks like. Not quotas, not double standards, not separate physical standards or lowered selection criteria. The responsibility of the military draft lies equally with both men and women.
I would say that just because a secretary of defense issues a decree, it doesn't mean that women are suddently physically capable of fighting on the front lines.
As somebody who vehemently objects to opening front-line combat positions to women (for a multitude of reasons: here, here, here, here, and here–just for starters), however, I happen to agree with Amber on this: if combat positions are open to women, they should be required to register for the draft.
You can't have it both ways. In my judgment, feminists will come to rue the day they pushed for women in combat.