[Front ranks of the West Coast mobilization against draft registration on Market St. in San Francisco, 22 March 1980. Photo by Chris Booth for Resistance News.]
[Front ranks of the West Coast mobilization against draft registration on Market St. in San Francisco, 22 March 1980. Photo by Chris Booth for Resistance News.]
No young person, regardless of gender, should be subject to a military draft or be forced to register for a draft in the United States. The military draft registration system is an unnecessary, wasteful bureaucracy which unconstitutionally violates Americans’ civil liberties and unfairly subjects individuals who fail to register for the draft to unnecessarily severe, lifelong penalties — penalties which disproportionately affect low-income Americans. We should be abolishing military draft registration altogether, not expanding it, which is why I’m proud to reintroduce the Selective Service Repeal Act in the House.
[Rep. Peter DeFazio, 14 April 2021; interview with Rep. DeFazio on Oregon Public Radio, 25 April 2021]
The four of us recently introduced the Selective Service Repeal Act, a bill to finally put an end to the expensive, wasteful, outdated, punitive, and unnecessary military draft registration system. We urge you to include our bill, or similar provisions, in the FY 2022 NDAA and to oppose any efforts to expand military draft registration.
[Joint letter from the sponsors of the Selective Service Repeal Act to the House Armed Services Committee, 23 July 2021]
In 2016, 2021, and again in 2022, Congress came close to approving legislation to expand the requirement to register with the Selective Service System for a possible military draft to include young women as well as young men. Each time Congress has considered this isse, it has been buried in a 2,000-page bill with hundreds of other provisions. Congress has avoided any floor vote or hearings on the continuation or expansion of draft registration. There have still been no hearings or debate in either the House or the Senate on the Selective Service Repeal Act.
Why are we talking about expanding draft registration to women, rather than ending it?
The choice is not between continuing male-only draft registration and expanding draft registration to women. The real choice is whether to expand registration to women or to end it entirely.
This is a choice about militarism, not a choice about gender equality. Expanding draft registration to women would bring about a semblance of equality in war (although women in the military would likely still be subject to disproportionate sexual harassment and abuse). Ending draft registration would bring about real equality in peace and freedom. It would put an end to the fantasy that the draft is always available as a “fallback” — a myth that enables planning for larger, longer, less popular wars without concern for whether people will volunteer to fight them.
Draft boards have been appointed and trained throughout the U.S. The Selective Service System maintains contingency plans for a general “cannon fodder” draft of young men (based on the current list of registrants) and a separate Health Care Personnel Delivery System.
All male U.S. residents are required to register with the Selective Service System when they turn 18, and notify Selective Service every time they change their address until their 26th birthday.
Few young men comply fully with the draft registration law. Most men who register for the draft do so only if and when it is required for some other government program, and almost nobody tells the Selective Service System when they move. Most draft notices would be returned as undeliverable. Even the former Director of the Selective Service System has testified that the current Selective Service database is so incomplete and inaccurate that it would be “less than useless” for an actual draft.
The expansion of draft registration to women was removed from the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) during the final stage of House-Senate negotiations — as it had been removed at the last minute from the 2022 NDAA.
But the expansion of draft registration is a bad idea that won’t go away until Congress ends draft registration entirely.
Sooner or later, the failure of draft registration will become too widely recognized for the government to ignore. At that point, the government will have to decide whether to try again to prosecute a handful of nonregistrants in the hope that a few “show trials” will scare everyone else into registering (as it tried to do, unsuccessfully, with a few young men in the 1980s, before abandoning enforcement of the registration law in 1988), or finally admit failure and end draft registration.
Our actions now in lobbying for an end to draft registration and repeal of the Military Selective Service Act, organizing against the draft and draft registration, supporting resistance to draft registration, and calling public attention to the extent of noncompliance with draft registration can help make the difference in whether draft registration is ended soon, or whether another generation of young people — this time including young women as well as young men — is subjected both to the requirement to register for the draft and to a new threat of prosecution of a selected few if they do not.
Congress could end draft registration entirely, rather than trying to extend it to women. A bipartisan Selective Service Repeal Act (previously H.R. 2509 / S. 1139) was introduced in both the House and the Senate in the last two sessions of Congress, and could be reintroduced in the current Congress. This bill would end preparations for a draft and restore the eligibility of men who didn’t register for the draft for government jobs, naturalized citizenship, and other government programs from which they are currently excluded — including even drivers’ licenses in some states (although not California)!
The perception that the draft is always available as a “fallback” enables planning for larger, longer, less popular wars, without regard for whether people will volunteer to fight them. By preventing a draft, draft registration resisters are helping to protect us all against war. We can support them by asking our Representatives and Senators to support the Selective Service Repeal Act.
Co-sponsors of the Selective Service Repeal Act of 2021 included Republicans and Democrats, civil libertarians and progressives, women of color (Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-MI, and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-DC), the co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus (Rep. Mark Pocan, D-WI), and a woman military veteran (Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-IA).
Ask your Representative and Senators to re-introduce or co-sponsor the Selective Service Repeal Act (H.R. 2509 and S. 1139 in the previous session of Congress), and urge House and Senate Armed Services Committee members to push for hearings on Selective Service repeal.
A similarly-titled but much narrower bill, H.R. 6100, the Military Selective Service Repeal Act of 2023, was introduced by a different member of Congress in October 2023. This bill would be good, but doesn’t go far enough. This bill would end draft registration and abolish the Selective Service System, but would not preempt the state sanctions, some of which would continue for life, against those who didn’t register for the draft while registration was required. Opponents of the draft should continue to look for a member of the House or Senate who is willing to re-introduce the Selective Service Repeal Act of 2021 in the current Congress.
Download this leaflet as a 2-sided 1-sheet PDF.
This page published or republished here 20 December 2019; most recently modified 10 January 2024. This site is maintained by Edward Hasbrouck. Corrections, contributions (articles, graphics, photos, videos, links, etc.), and feedback are welcomed.