Time to draft Women Too? A Call to End the Selective Service System for Everyone

Tuesday, August 24 @ 7:00 pm EDT

Register here:
http://https//us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrceurqTMoH9UNo0RaYTPsgfUpcJDhNRJM

With Edward Hasbrouck

“As we and many other peace-loving Americans see it, 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.” [Letter to Congress
from anti-draft activists, March 2021]

Edward Hasbrouck is the only person to have been prosecuted in
Massachusetts for resistance to the military draft since the end of the
U.S. war in Indochina. An activist with Mass. Open Resistance and the
National Resistance Committee, he “served” 4 ½ months in a Federal prison
camp in 1983-1984 for refusing to register with the Selective Service
System. In 2019, he was the only draft resister invited to testify before
the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. He is a
member of the War Resisters League and the Military Law Task Force of the
National Lawyers Guild, and is active in movements for peace, human
rights, and youth liberation. His Web site, Resisters.info, is the most
comprehensive resource about the draft, draft registration, and draft
resistance in the U.S. since 1980.

In this timely webinar on an issue currently under debate in Congress,
Edward will discuss:

*  The largely-unknown history of Selective Service since the end of the
U.S. war in Indochina, including how resistance to draft registration has
prevented activation of a draft.

* Why Congress is now considering proposals either to end draft
registration (as endorsed by Peace Action) or to expand Selective Service
registration to women, and the fallacy of trying to expand draft
registration to women as a path to gender justice.

* How draft registration and contingency planning for a draft enable
planning for longer, larger, and less popular wars, and how ending draft
registration could constrain war planning and empower young people and
older allies to greater resistance to war and war preparations.