Selective Conscientious Objection: Accommodating Conscience And Security

Demographic trends indicate that, if the size of our nation's military forces is to be maintained through the 1990s, a larger proportion of the declining number of eligible young men and women must be recruited and retained. Some experts have suggested that it may be necessary to return to conscription in order to achieve the necessary force levels. However, the pool of young people, on whom the military must rely, have had the unprecedented experience of having been exhorted for most of their lives to conscientiously question the use of armed force. Our political and moral systems are in conflict over their right to refuse military service. Ninety-four percent of Americans believe in God and seventy percent attend a church or synagogue. 1 Their religious leaders insist on the individual's obligation to selectively object to the use of military force and urge that the law be changed to protect selective objectors. At present, the legal system recognizes only the conscientious objection claims of complete pacifists, who need not be religiously motivated.

Michael F. Noone, Jr., is an Associate Professor of Law at The Catholic University of America He retired as a Colonel after twenty years' service in the U.S. Air Force as a judge advocate. His publications include "Military Social Science Research in Law" (forthcoming, Armed Forces and Society); ''Rendering Unto Caesar: Legal Responses to Religious Nonconformity in the Armed Forces," St. Mary's Law Journal, 18 (1987).