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
Joycelyn Elders quotes about
My biggest challenge is to educate the American people, to make access to health care available for all, and to make sure that prevention plays a big part in health care. In the case of guns, prevention means we prevent homicides and devastating, expensive gun injuries by preventing those who shouldn't have guns from getting their hands on guns.
Once I had a professor say to me, "You know you have as much education as a lot of white people." I answered, "Doctor, I have more education than most white people."
Condoms will break, but I can assure you that vows of abstinence will break more easily than condoms.
We can begin to address the issue of guns by teaching our young people how to deal with situations in nonviolent ways. Someone said to me the other day, "What our adolescents need is not so much health care, but healthy caring," and I agree. Parents and churches need to provide that. Curricula in our schools [need to] provide that.
I've pretty much always used my positions as a bully pulpit. What that means is strongly advocating for the things I feel are really important. Gun violence, to me, is the highest-priority public-health issue, and I have to make sure Congress is aware of it, the American people are aware of it, the president is aware of it, and that we all begin together to develop policies to exterminate the disease - the epidemic, really - of gun violence.
I want every child that's born in the world to be planned and wanted.
Marijuana is beneficial to many patients
... black women have always found that in the social order of things we're the least likely to be believed--by anyone.
If you can't control your reproduction, you can't control your life.
As a Christian, as an individual, as a doctor, I am absolutely opposed to the death penalty.
Handguns are a public health issue.
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.
If you say children wouldn't know anything about masturbation on their own, you've never changed a little boy's diaper.
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.