DoD makes case for draft w/ women

The Selective Service System is an "inexpensive insurance policy" ($23M/annually) against a national emergency and should be modified to include women, implied Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs James Stewart in a hearing April 24 on the future of draft registration in America. Jeanette James, a member of a federal commission studying the future of the draft, asked Stewart would including women in the draft would "result in a more lethal military." Stewart avoided answering directly. "As long as those individuals meet standards, we are open to them," Stewart said. When pressed further, Stewart said: "It is, already" (a more lethal military). Until his response, the Defense Department has been silent on the proceedings of the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service, which is conducting a 3-year review of public service in America, and considering whether the U.S. needs the Selective Service System and if women should be required to register. The commission was to meet April 25 to hear testimony from those opposed to expansion of Selective Service System. The U.S. Justice Department has appealed a Texas judge's ruling April 22 that the country's male-only draft registration system is unconstitutional. Judge Gray Miller ruled last February that the government's requirement that only male citizens register is discriminatory under the Fifth Amendment's equal protection clause. (Source: Military.com 04/24/19)