The feminists wanted equality. Well, they might get it.

In a bipartisan vote that almost included the whole senate, a measure in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act that had women being included in the draft was voted through in an 85-13 vote. The only ones that voted no were the most conservative of the Republicans.

Among them were Senators Ted Cruz and Ben Sasse.

“The idea that we should forcibly conscript young girls into combat, to my mind, makes little or no sense,” said Cruz. “It is at a minimum a radical proposition. I could not vote for a bill that did so, particularly that did so without public debate.”

He also talked at length about his refusal to vote for this bill on his website.

“Unfortunately, this legislation also forces programs on the American people that are not necessary to protect our lives and safety. It is being used as a vehicle to further agendas that have nothing to do with actually defending America. Despite the many laudable objectives in this bill, I could not in good conscience vote to draft our daughters into the military, sending them off to war and forcing them into combat. Additionally, I could not vote for this legislation because I made a promise when I was elected to office that I would not vote for an NDAA that continued to allow the President to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens by indefinitely detaining them without due process.”

“Wisdom should be nudging us to try to avoid unnecessary fighting,” Ben Sasse said in the Omaha World-Herald. “Why are we now fighting about drafting our sisters and our mothers and our daughters into a draft that no one anywhere is telling us that they need?”

Senators Mike Lee, and Rand Paul also attempted to introduce language into the bill that would have neutered, or gotten rid of the draft altogether respectively, but neither managed to succeed.

As it stands, the bill probably won’t survive a trip to the President’s desk, as the bill includes a prohibition on closing down Guantanamo Bay, which is Obama’s favorite pipe dream. Furthermore, the House passed a bill that omitted women in the draft, so the two houses will have to get together and work that out.

Despite its inevitable death, the fact that we’re pushing through a bill that put women in harms way with bipartisan support is nothing short of shameful. While women in the military is something I wholly support, women being forced into service – especially when they’re on the verge of being put into frontline combat roles – is not something I, and many others can get behind.