Perspective: The first time the U.S. considered drafting women — 75 years ago
Navy women's soccer goalkeeper Elizabeth Hoerner stands in formation before the start of the Army-Navy NCAA college football game in Philadelphia in 2013. By Pamela D. Toler Pamela D. Toler is the author of"Women Warriors: An Unexpected History" and numerous other books. March 21 at 6:00 AM The United States came one step closer to making women eligible for the draft last month when U.S.
In his State of the Union address on Jan. 6, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called on Congress to amend the Selective Services Act to allow conscription of nurses, who were all women. His reasoning had nothing to do with equality under the law: The U.S. Army had a desperate shortage of nurses, a result of higher-than-anticipated casualty rates in the Normandy invasion the previous June and the subsequent bloody battles in the Ardennes during World War II.
Congress treated the proposed conscription of nurses as one more emergency expansion of women in the military. On Jan. 9, three days after Roosevelt’s speech, Rep. Andrew J. May introduced a bill that made nurses eligible for the draft, subject to the same exemptions as men.
The House approved the bill, by a vote of 347 to 42, on March 28, 1945. Three weeks later, the Senate Military Affairs Committee sent a similar bill to the full Senate for debate. The Senate deferred action on the bill twice, on April 9 and May 21.
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