Joycelyn Elders
Joycelyn Elders
Minnie Joycelyn Eldersis an American pediatrician and public health administrator. She was a vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the first African American appointed as Surgeon General of the United States. Elders is best known for her frank discussion of her views on controversial issues such as drug legalization and distributing contraception in schools. She was fired in December 1994 amidst controversy as a result of her views. She is currently a professor emerita of pediatrics...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDoctor
Date of Birth13 August 1933
CountryUnited States of America
I want every child that's born in the world to be planned and wanted.
If you say children wouldn't know anything about masturbation on their own, you've never changed a little boy's diaper.
How do you get rid of the trash? It's out there in society, it's going on every day [...] You can educate children an awful lot easier than you can get rid of the trash.
We know that there are several predisposing factors to gun violence: poverty, lack of education, lack of good parenting, lack of jobs, living in an environment where violence is seen every day, all the time. And children being born to children are likely to have all of these predisposing factors.
... if you're poor and ignorant, with a child, you're a slave. Meaning that you're never going to get out of it. These women are in bondage to a kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment just didn't deal with. The old master provided food, clothing and health care to the slaves because he wanted them to get up and go to work in the morning. And so on welfare: you get food, clothing and shelter--you get survival, but you can't really do anything else. You can't control your life.
I'm against abstinence programs because I really consider "abstinence only" child abuse.
You can't educate a child who isn't healthy, and you can't keep a child healthy who isn't educated.
We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children.
I feel that we can't educate children who are not healthy, and we can't keep them healthy if they're not educated. There has to be a marriage between health and education. You can't learn if your mind is full of unhealthy images from daily life and confusion about right and wrong.
It is often easier for our children to obtain a gun than it is to find a good school.
Our country talked about masturbation more in December of 1994 than they ever have in the history of the country, and you know, people would think you'd be embarrassed about that. I'm not embarrassed about that.
I went to Washington, not to get that job but to do that job. I wanted to do something about the problems that I saw out there that were happening in our country. I wanted to do something to make sure that all people had access to health care. I wanted to do something to reduce teenage pregnancies and begin to address the needs of our adolescents.
I always say my God will take care of me. If it's my time I'll go, and if it's not I won't. I feel that He really has a lot of important things for me to do. And He's going to make sure that I'm here to do them.
[On masturbation:] I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught.