Joycelyn Elders

Minnie Joycelyn Elders (born August 13, 1933) was Surgeon General of the United States from September 8, 1993 to December 31, 1994.

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Quotes

Handguns are a public health issue.
- Hall, Mimi (9 November 1993). "Elders makes assault on guns". USA Today: pp. A5ff.

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.
- Sipchen, Bob (July 3, 1997). "Straight Talk From a Straight Shooter Journeys: Joycelyn Elders was known for her outspokenness during her run". Los Angeles Times: p. E-1. Retrieved on 2007-05-20.

We've tried ignorance for a thousand years. It's time we try education.
- On sex education
- Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, "Abstinence" [4.10], 5 June 2006

As long as I was in Washington I never met anybody that I thought was good enough, who knew enough, or who loved enough to make sexual decisions for anybody else.
- Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, "Abstinence" [4.10], 5 June 2006

If men went through menopause, we'd know everything about it, but we still don't even know if we should be taking hormones.
- Jessica Valenti (2014-05-23). "Dr. Joycelyn Elders is so fucking cool". Feministing.com. Retrieved on 2014-05-23.

We must stop this love affair with the fetus.
- Speech in Austin, Texas, January 21, 1994
- Dreifus, Claudia (January 30, 1994). "Joycelyn Elders". New York Times Magazine: p. p. 19.

I want every child that's born in the world to be planned and wanted.
- Jessica Valenti (2014-05-23). "Dr. Joycelyn Elders is so fucking cool". Feministing.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-04.

If you can't control your reproduction, you can't control your life.
- Jessica Valenti (2014-05-23). "Dr. Joycelyn Elders is so fucking cool". Feministing.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-04.

I'm against abstinence programs because I really consider "abstinence only" child abuse.
- Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, "Abstinence" [4.10], 5 June 2006

Condoms will break, but I can assure you that vows of abstinence will break more easily than condoms.
- Jessica Valenti (2014-05-23). "Dr. Joycelyn Elders is so fucking cool". Feministing.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-04.

They are boycotting common sense.
- On politicians who promote abstinence-only education
- Jessica Valenti (2014-05-23). "Dr. Joycelyn Elders is so fucking cool". Feministing.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-04.

We know that more than 70 to 80% of women masturbate, and 90% of men masturbate, and the rest lie.
- Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, "Abstinence" [4.10], 5 June 2006

If you say children wouldn't know anything about masturbation on their own, you've never changed a little boy's diaper.
- Jessica Valenti (2014-05-23). "Dr. Joycelyn Elders is so fucking cool". Feministing.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-04.

I heard on the way over here, by the way, that they've come up with a new nominee for surgeon general: Pee-Wee Herman, is....You don't think that would have happened if it weren't for the fact that you were all elected do you? This is a sensitive subject and I am not gonna mention it because she got canned for it, but I'll tell ya, she said much worse than this. And she said far stupider things, like “The way to combat crime is with safer bullets, with safer guns.”
- Rush Limbaugh, Address to Incoming House GOP Freshmen delivered 10 December 1994, Baltimore, MD
I certainly agree with the suggestion made by the former surgeon general Joycelyn Elders that a public dialogue on the decriminalization of drugs is absolutely necessary. As it stands today, people are punished because they have done harm to themselves. The "crime problem" can only be addressed ultimately by the eradication of poverty, by the eradication of the circumstances that lead people to commit the kinds of crimes for which most are sent to prison.
- 1998 interview in Conversations with Angela Davis Edited by Sharon Lynette Jones (2021)

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Joycelyn Elders