Based on existing legislation, women have been exempted from registering with the Selective Service System upon reaching their eighteenth birthday, as men are required to do.  That is now an active legal issue.  The Supreme Court held in Rostker v. Goldberg:

The existence of the combat restrictions clearly indicates the basis for Congress' decision to exempt women from registration. The purpose of registration was to prepare for a draft of combat troops. Since women are excluded from combat, Congress concluded that they would not be needed in the event of a draft, and therefore decided not to register them.

Now that President Obama and his secretary of defense, Ash Carter, have removed all barriers to women serving in combat, the rationale for that court’s decision in no longer based on fact.  The National Coalition for Men has an appeal pending before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the exemption of women.  You can read about their appeal on their website.

On December 8, 2015 NCFM’s appeal in their lawsuit against the Selective Service challenging the constitutionality of the male-only draft requirement came up for oral argument before a three-judge panel at the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California.

NCFM Vice President Marc Angelucci barely got three sentences in when the judges stopped him and essentially said there is no need to argue whether the dismissal was erroneous in 2013, because a few days ago the circumstances changed when the Department of Defense announced that women would be allowed in all combat roles. Angelucci, surprised and even somewhat taken back by the court’s position, reserved his remaining time and sat down. The Court understood.

If the appellants got essentially no resistance to their plea based on the changing factual basis, it seems plausible that the court will eventually find in their favor and require registration for women based on the Equal Protection clause.

This ought to provide a lot of entertainment for both the voters and the pundits.  The key observation to make is in the penalties for failure to register.  Registration is required to qualify for various federal programs and benefits.  Failure to register is a violation of the Military Selective Service Act.  “Conviction for such a violation may result in imprisonment for up to five years and/or a fine of not more than $250,000.”

The SSS website lists the Benefits and Penalties.  The penalties include the loss of federal student financial aid, state-funded student financial aid in many states, federal job training programs, and federal jobs.  There are also naturalization constraints.  Note that the Selective Service registration requirements already apply to undocumented immigrant males.

One result of these penalties is that any female “DREAMers” who hope to have their college tuition paid and to become citizens via an amnesty favored by President Obama would be legally bound to register for any possible future draft.  Being young, female, and/or undocumented won’t save them from having to register.  So what would keep them out of a future conscription would be the continued availability of sufficient volunteers to fill the ranks of our armed forces without needing a draft.

Let us not forget that it was Hillary Clinton who chortled, “We came, we saw, he died” upon hearing the news of the death of Gaddafi.  She’s advocated for that “kinetic military action” already, regardless of the consequences.  If the situation leads to war against ISIS and a draft, what will she say?  “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Maybe the female “DREAMers” will self-deport back home or to Canada, just like in the sixties!