Joycelyn Elders

“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.”

“We've tried ignorance for a thousand years. It's time we try education.”

“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.”

“If men went through menopause, we'd know everything about it, but we still don't even know if we should be taking hormones.”

“We must stop this love affair with the fetus.”

“I want every child that's born in the world to be planned and wanted.”

“I'm against abstinence programs because I really consider "abstinence only" child abuse.”

“Condoms will break, but I can assure you that vows of abstinence will break more easily than condoms.”

“They are boycotting common sense.”

“We know that more than 70 to 80% of women masturbate, and 90% of men masturbate, and the rest lie.”

“If you say children wouldn't know anything about masturbation on their own, you've never changed a little boy's diaper.”