Will Orthodox Women Get Drafted in American Army?

I greatly fear that American women will be forced to register to be drafted in the American army. When I use to mention this to most people they dismissed my worries. But now, as of June 6, 2016, the Washington Post writes that the head of the Senate committee on Army and Defense, Senator John McCain, is open to drafting women. A vote in the House by a few dozen representatives who are involved with military issues revealed a majority of pro-draft for women.

President Obama has been working toward this and now it seems he has it. What was his plan and why must we fear that he won this battle?

In 1981, the Supreme Court of the U.S. in Rostker v. Goldberg 453 U.S. 57 ruled that the practice of requiring only men to register for the draft was constitutional. The justices voted by 6-3 that since women did not participate in war, there was no reason to draft them. This became the accepted policy of the Military Selective Service Act until today, although Jimmy Carter wanted to include women in the MSSA. Another president, Obama, decided to change the MSSA by having the military accept women for combat. This was a process that took some years to achieve as ladies had to be trained in various areas that required strength most women did not have. A lady was trained to fly a jet plane off of an air craft career and she crashed into the ocean and died. But the process continued under Obama until some women were able to do difficult combat tasks. At that point, when women were already volunteering for the military and were participating in shooting battles, and were now being trained for full participation in all kinds of fighting, it was obvious that the ruling of the Supreme Court to exempt women from the draft was no long feasible. And now there is no longer any legal basis to exempt women from the military and the draft. When we recognize that President Carter wanted a draft for women even when they did not do fighting, and that three Supreme Court justices agreed that women should be drafted without their fighting, we see that the issue is a complex one. Now, especially, it will be very difficult to reverse the Supreme Court ruling and the feeling of many that men and women must be drafted in the Military Selective Service Act.

My mechuton Rav Eliezar Brizel of Jerusalem explained to me that the sin of a woman joining the army is not because of a fear of sin. It is because a woman may not be under the control of anyone other than a father and a husband. If the government drafts a woman to say Tehilim an hour each day, or some similar matter, it means the government has a control over her, and is forbidden.

Thus, it is forbidden for the government to have any control over a woman. But for a woman to be drafted into an army of men, or men and women, is a hideous problem. If an army is comprised of men and women, it is a sin for men or women to go there, because the army itself is a place of sin and abuse. The fines and jail that can result from this will be a big problem.