We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

Female service members standing in formation.

Female service members standing in formation. (Jaimee Freeman/U.S. Air Force)


WASHINGTON — A group of Republican senators is fighting against a legislative proposal long pushed by Democrats to force young women to register for the military draft.

The eight senators on Thursday urged the chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services committees to reject a provision that would require men and women to register automatically for the Selective Service System.

“America’s daughters, sisters, wives and mothers can decide to join the military themselves,” the Republican senators, led by Josh Hawley of Missouri, wrote in a letter to the committee leaders.

The senators — all men — said they strongly opposed a provision in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s draft of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act to expand selective service registration to women, calling the proposal “a tool of liberal social policy.”

The House’s version of the must-pass legislation does not include the provision and negotiations between the two chambers on a final bill are underway.

Men are required to register with the selective service system once they turn 18 years old in case of conscription while women have been exempted from registration even after they were allowed to serve in combat roles in 2015.

Hawley and other senators argue Congress should retain that longstanding tradition and defer to the agenda of President-elect Donald Trump as he returns to office.

“President Trump ran in part on a platform of avoiding World War III and ending the progressive policies infecting our military,” the senators wrote. “The American people gave him a resounding electoral mandate.”

Lawmakers, particularly Democrats, have considered making women eligible for the draft for years as the number of Americans who volunteer for military service declines. In 2020, a congressionally mandated commission said such a step would be “necessary and fair.”

But legislative efforts to codify the change into law have so far faltered, with lawmakers ultimately scrapping proposals during final bill negotiations. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., has repeatedly championed gender parity in the draft as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Hawley and other Republicans called on him on Thursday to drop the issue, noting “Americans rejected social progressivism in 2024” and negotiators of the NDAA “should take this lesson to heart.”

The senators did not mention another proposed change to conscription that negotiators are also weighing. That proposal, initiated by the House, would make registering for the draft automatic for men.