UK: As pregnancies on the frontline soar, MoD tells women soldiers: Carry a condom

The IDF has been living this issue now for years. Take some men and women and place them in very intimate settings (ie, sharing quarters, or almost doing so), then place them in harm's way, all this away from their typical support systems (families, non-military jobs, if they are in the reserves, etc.) and then see what happens.

As they say in 5th grade: "uh, duhhh!"

There is no practical way short of death by firing squad as punishment for stopping pregnancies or "fraternization" among mixed-sex troops. Even if you could be 100% sure ALL of deployed troops were 100% homosexual going into the battle, I guarantee you there'd be some pregnant women coming out of the whole thing just due to the bizarreness that the stressors of combat create on people's psyches. Just one scenario: a male soldier and female one, both gay, are together alone for three days cut off from rescue but who save one another's lives five times a day - chance of some kind of we're-about-to-die-so-frack-it hanky-panky goes up pretty darn high, yes?

OK, so that's a bit out there. But you get the idea. Point is, there is no way to regulate or militarize our desire to engage in sex with one another out of us, nor can our urge to do this be stopped. We'll do it even if ordered at gunpoint not to do it. Political correctness will not change that.

Carrying a condom won't make any difference.

That's one of my problems with women in the military. They get pregnant when the going gets tough. And don't tell me they don't know how to prevent getting pregnant.

What I don't mind is a woman dying for her country. That's fair, as women have more rights than men.

You might view my post as somewhat radical but to me in the end its actually more rational and humane. I'm talking about the distinction made between civilian and non civilian adults when it comes to rules of war (none of this applies to minors).

I take issue with the idea that a society can decide to go to war, send others for their bidding and all the while demand protection from the war itself. What does that say to the soldiers fighting for their country; you are disposable but I am not? What about the other country? When they see the devastation brought on to them does it really make sense to only retaliate on the "drones" as apposed to the society that saw fit to invade your country? Basically by the rules of warfare the society that starts a war and seeks to benefit from it chooses among them who will do the brunt work and declares that only those people can be killed or imprisoned.

Would society really vote for war as often as they do if they knew that they too might die in the process? Would the leaders themselves be as eager for war? "Civilizing" warfare is not always a good idea when many people die anyways; though I think its barbaric to call your neighbor kill-able while you maintain protection as a "civilian" who incidentally sent the other to war. We have rules that allows us to send its boys to go off and only they can die, but we are never to be touched. Those protected from any (legal) bloodshed tend to be the wealthy and those above 35. The very people who have reaped the most from what society had to offer. Let only the young boys die is all I hear from a society honoring a civilian non-civilian distinction. The children are the only helpless ones.