American women will soon become eligible (in theory) for the draft

MASS CONSCRIPTION in wartime is a remote prospect in America. But were a draft called, the country’s conscripts might soon look very different. An amendment to the annual defence policy bill winding its way through Congress would make women eligible for the military draft for the first time. On September 2nd it passed the House Armed Services Committee. “It’s past time,” declared Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan, a former Air Force officer and lead sponsor of the amendment. Coupled with the success of a similar provision in the Senate, the change is now almost certain to become law when the final bill comes to a vote.

Though the compulsory military draft ended in 1973, controversy over who could be called to serve did not. Conscription was so unpopular in the wake of the Vietnam war that after 1975 men were not even required to register for the Selective Service, the directory of those eligible to be drafted. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 prompted President Jimmy Carter to reinstate the requirement for men, but Congress balked at the potential inclusion of women. The 1981 Supreme Court decision in Rostker v Goldberg found that, because women were not allowed to serve in combat roles, they could be excluded from the Selective Service. This argument began to look thin even before Leigh Ann Hester...