[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 98 (Monday, July 25, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    DR. ELDERS' CONTROVERSIAL TENURE

                                 ______


                          HON. PHILIP M. CRANE

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 25, 1994

  Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, as Congress debates the best ways for 
improving our Nation's health care system, Joycelyn Elders, the U.S. 
Surgeon General, is systematically working to destroy the moral and, by 
extension, physical health of our country. Dr. Elders has advocated 
giving condoms to school children, regardless of their age, with little 
or no regard for the consequences. These consequences have included 
children bearing children and children acquiring sexually transmitted 
diseases because they were not adequately informed about the risks 
involved with engaging in sexual intercourse.
  Unfortunately, Dr. Elders does not see the need to inform children 
about the alternative to sex, abstinence. In fact, she sneers at the 
idea and would rather hand a condom to a teen. Considering that AIDS is 
a 100 percent fatal disease and condoms, due to improper use and 
defects, are not 100 percent effective, certainly she should inform 
teens that sex with condoms could be fatal. However, as we know, Dr. 
Elders refuses to inform anyone of the failure rate of condoms, lest 
they lose faith in that form of contraceptive.
  I have included an article from the June 13, 1994, issue of the 
Washington Times by Suzanne Fields in which she discusses Dr. Elders' 
controversial tenure as the Nation's top doc. I commend this article to 
the attention of my colleagues.

                   Joycelyn Elders, Sex Guru General

       Joycelyn Elders is a surgeon general who turns satire into 
     public policy. She wants to bring sex ``out of the closet,'' 
     tell all the little school children how much fun sex can be, 
     and introduce lesbian love to the Girl Scouts.
       How else, she asks, can we reduce sexually transmitted 
     diseases or teen-age pregnancies?
       She might get laughs if she was a stand-up comic (Gilda 
     Radner could have done it better), but as the leading doctor 
     in the country, it's time for Dr. Elders to recognize that 
     she is bad for our mental and physical health.
       In an extraordinary interview with USA Weekend, she 
     suggests giving condoms to 9-year-olds. ``We have junior high 
     school girls having babies, 12-year-olds, 9-year-olds,'' she 
     said. ``We had a girl in Arkansas who at 8 gave birth to 
     twins. We must teach them responsibility and make sure they 
     have the availability of a condom.''
       Suddenly everything becomes clear. Joycelyn Elders wants to 
     reduce policy to the behavior of that 8-year-old mother of 
     twins. Not so long ago she defended giving away condoms in 
     school because ``poor children in the Delta have to go 13 
     miles to get to the drug store and they don't have the 
     money.''
       Once upon a time in America it was an article of faith that 
     the poor, no less than the rich and the middle class, could 
     behave to decent standards of morality. Some would fall along 
     the way. So would some of their more privileged sisters and 
     brothers. But it was unthinkable to suggest that public 
     schools sponsor sex education courses and condom giveaways 
     for youngsters simply because no one at home taught them that 
     humans are held to a higher standard than dogs and cats. What 
     they didn't learn at home about the value of truth, courage, 
     compassion, friendship, self-discipline, restraint and 
     responsibility was meant to be absorbed from the general 
     culture, and from appeals to the accepted absolutes of right 
     and wrong.
       Attitudes toward sex, like everything else, were clearly 
     understood to be part of a comprehensive value system and 
     children, like adults, were judged according to their 
     adherence to the ideals of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In 
     Dr. Elders' analysis, those who uphold such ideals today, 
     those who crave the decent life that comes with restraint 
     rather than indulgence, are the cultural outsiders.
       A society whose Top Doc appeals to the lowest common 
     denominator guarantees that those who listen to her continue 
     on a moral decline. A dramatic increase in sexual activity 
     among teen-agers under the age of 18 during the past three 
     decades--accompanied by soaring rates of sexually transmitted 
     diseases and out-of-wedlock births--reflects the 
     vulnerability of the next generation to produce even more 
     afflicted children.
       Many young girls, under 15, according to a new study from 
     the Alan Guttmacher Institute, are led, some say forced, by 
     older males. Doesn't statutory rape apply to them? Donna 
     Shalala, secretary of Health and Human Services, says the 
     study is ``further proof of how badly teen-agers need our 
     help to avoid having sex while they are still just children 
     themselves.''
       The problem goes even deeper than that. Dr. Elders once 
     noted that she didn't intend to put condoms on the cafeteria 
     tray, but she might as well. Her rhetoric reduces sex to the 
     moral equivalent of hamburgers and fries. When she applauds 
     abstinence, she does it as a sop to a speechwriter's work, 
     without conviction. In fact, the Clinton administration seeks 
     to zero fund the small abstinence-oriented school programs 
     that encourage young men and women to bask in the self-esteem 
     that inevitably accompanies self-discipline.
       But here's a better idea for Dr. Elders: Why not push 
     comprehensive character-building classes aiming at a better 
     life? Not many parents would object to their 8-year-olds 
     learning the Golden Rule and its implications for society. 
     Teachers could have them read--or read to them--from ``The 
     Book of Virtues,'' Bill Bennett's best selling collection of 
     moral wit and wisdom of the giants of the ages. These stories 
     contribute to literacy as well as good habits (which include 
     health).
       ``I dare say you can't teach reading, writing and 
     'rithmetic, to children who are not physically, emotionally 
     and psychologically fit,'' says Dr. Elders. (But, by golly, 
     you can teach them how to put on a condom.)
       Over the past 30 years we have sexualized children so as to 
     rob them of their innocence, interrupting their personal 
     fantasies with technical information that only undercuts 
     aspirations toward self-control and self-discipline. As long 
     as we continue to ``dumb down'' sex, we make it more 
     difficult for children to hear the better angels of nature.

                          ____________________