Should Women Be Drafted into the Military?

Families are strongest when both mother and father are in the home. If one of the parents must be drafted to serve in the military, it is better for the family if the mother stays in the home. Therefore, families are stronger when women are not subject to a military draft, and strong families strengthen communities and nations.

Nevertheless, the topic of drafting women is discussed before every presidential election, according to Valerie M. Hudson, university distinguished professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and a contributor at The Deseret News. She wrote that Republicans suggested a military draft of women in 2016 and that Democrats made a similar suggestion in both 2020 and 2024. The suggestion is “coincident with the defense authorization bills necessary to keep the military running.” 

The Supreme Court refused to discuss a draft of women in 2020 and deferred such a decision to Congress. However, “the government commission assigned to study the issue concluded that women should be required to register for the draft.” It is little surprising that military chiefs like the idea of drafting women due to “the troubling shortfall in recruitment for the all-volunteer military” – about 41,000 short in 2023.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) commented that opposition to the proposal by Republicans does not make sense. However, Hudson wrote that drafting women does not make sense.

…Let’s count the ironies here. And let’s start from the reality-based premise that only women give birth to the new generation of Americans.

What, at a minimum, must a nation have to survive? It must have protection, even physical protection in the form of soldiers willing to lay down their health and even their lives if necessary to counter threats to the nation’s security. But protection is not enough for a nation to survive. Even a well-protected nation will die out in the space of a generation if there is no reproduction. Only through reproduction does a nation have a future. These two tasks, protection and reproduction, are the fundamental tasks of the nation.

Both of these tasks are personally costly. But only one – protection – is recognized for that cost. Let’s examine the costs of the other.

Though we rarely couch it in these terms, women, like soldiers, offer to lay down their health and even their lives so that their nation might have a future in the new citizens brought into the world. That we have not seen this reproductive labor as a patriotic service on a par with men’s service in combat says more about our society than it says about the intrinsic value of this work. By the time they reach menopause, about 86% of women in the U.S. have become mothers; far less than half that percentage of men will have served in the military.

Indeed, consider that in the history of our nation – from 1776 onwards – more women have died or been seriously harmed in the processes of childbirth than men have died or been wounded in battle. Examining the time period 1900-2019, comparing combat deaths versus maternal deaths for the entire 120-year period, there were an estimated 432,895 combat deaths and an estimated 854,824 maternal deaths.

Think about that – there were almost twice as many maternal deaths as combat deaths over the past 120 years.

But what if we delimited it to the first few decades of the 20^th century, when we had World War I and World War II? And maybe even throw in the Korean War for good measure? From the period 1900-1953, there were an estimated 379,114 combat deaths and an estimated 804,514 maternal deaths – over twice as many maternal deaths as combat deaths during the bloodiest part of the 20^th century.

What about the 21^st century? There were an estimated 5,686 combat deaths and an estimated 13,219 maternal deaths – again, well over twice as many maternal deaths. Indeed, the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. is now more than double what it was 35 years ago (currently 19.0 per 100,0000). The U.S. has the worst maternal mortality rate of all the developed countries in the world, and it is likely to get even worse under the patchwork of post-Dobbs state laws that make abortion illegal even when the health of the mother is at stake.

Given the numbers above, Hudson asked a critical question - why is it fair to add “women to the Selective Service mandate.” She continued, “More women are already laying down their lives for our society in greater numbers than men are. Drafting women would mean a gross disproportionate burden of physical risk would fall on women compared to men.”

Hudson mentioned other “ironies” about the fairness of drafting women, and they are as follow:

1. The “mommy tax” on a woman’s lifetime earnings of having a child, which can amount to over $1 million over time – an economic sacrifice.

2. The GI Bill given to all the soldiers who volunteered to lay down their health and their lives for their country. There is no such bill for the mothers. No, indeed, the pay gap between mothers and childless women is wider than the gap between childless women and men…. Women choose to have children; no one forced them to. Of course, in today’s all-volunteer army, soldiers choose to fight for their country; no one forced them to.

3. The military’s concern over recruitment has to do with falling birth rates. The United States now has a total fertility rate of about 1.62, far below the 2.1 children per woman necessary to keep the population stable…. Drafting women makes [the decision to have children] even more difficult.

4. Who is making the decision to go to war? By and large, it’s men. Only 25% of U.S. senators are female, and only 29% of representatives are….

God created men and women different but equal. In “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” the prophets and apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explained the God-given roles of men and women. 

… By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners….

Both fathers and mothers are needed in the home to love and care for children and to rear the next generation. However, fathers have the responsibility to protect the family, and mothers have the responsibility to nurture the children. Drafting men into the military is part of their divine responsibility, but drafting women into the military makes it impossible for them to perform their divine responsibilities. Mothers need to be at home with their families to strengthen their family, and a strong family will strengthen the community, state, and nation.