Joycelyn Elders Quotes

Those still in school and colleges have no business having access to condoms. I am not in favor of condoms.

I would like to ask each of you: Would you be in favor of some kind of education on birth control and if so, how would you use that as a possible solution to the ever present question of abortion.

To preach abstinence, I think, is absolutely not the right message to give to kids.

Well, I think that abstinence has its place as part of a comprehensive health and sex education curriculum. It would be wrong to exclude abstinence from a health curriculum, because there are some potentially very serious ramifications for early sexual activity.

Let's make sure that we are working for age-appropriate sex education in our school system.

Americans are a decade behind Canada when it comes to sex education and understanding their bodies.

Responsible moral behavior is the first and best line of defense against AIDS, and is the only message we should send young people worldwide.

I got great sex education, and I always knew that if I wanted to be sexually active, I had to have safe sex.

I think it is right that government should have passed legislation that requires that relationships and sex education is taught in schools, but at the same time, I also agree that it is right that parents should be able to choose the moment at which their children become exposed to that information.

It's the lack of this kind of open and honest education about sex that causes so many kids to grow up with sexual hang-ups.

When I went to school, sex education was mainly muttered warnings about the janitor.

Abstinence-only education - the best STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) and pregnancy delivery system that politicians have ever devised.

The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure and teenage girls are paying the real price.

Regarding sex education: no secrets!

Does sex education encourage sex? Many parents are afraid that talking about sex with their teenagers will be taken as permission for the teen to have sex. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, the more children learn abour sexuality from talking with their parents and teachers and reading accurate books, the less they feel compelled to find out for themselves.

Nothing about contraception should be taught in schools. There is no question that it will encourage sexual activity.

Why are people so afraid of giving their kids necessary information that might prevent an unwanted pregnancy or disease? But they're not worried about the violent nature of video games or movies or books.

God, there's teaching biology and teaching sexuality, and it's two separate things. They mix it and make it more of a morality thing where it's like, "A man and woman have a baby."

How can you be a physics major and be shocked when you get pregnant from having sex?

Why don't we teach sex the way we teach math or history? It is such a deeply crucial and healing part of life and we offer no road map. I think it is core to ending violence.

Protection of children from violence and abuse has always been my main activity or campaign.

Boys have penises and girls have vaginas. If they touch at the wrong time, you can make a baby or die.

It's still hard for me to talk about the day I visited a shelter for children who were victims of a domestic-violence household. The kinds of abuse they had suffered, and what it had done to them physically and emotionally ?- I don't have words for what I saw. This has to stop.

Sex education, including its spiritual aspects, should be part of a broad health and moral education from kindergarten through grade twelve, ideally carried out harmoniously by parents and teachers.

The argument that making contraceptives available to young people would prevent teen pregnancies is ridiculous. That's like offering a cookbook as a cure to people who are trying to lose weight.