 | Cover Story |
The Doc Who Talked Too Much
Her candor cost her a job, but former surgeon general Joycelyn Elders won't be silenced
by Debbie Gilbert
After Dr. Joycelyn Elders was fired by President Clinton for speaking her mind, you might think she'd be inclined now to bite her tongue or choose her words more judiciously. But if anything, the former surgeon general is more outspoken than ever.
When the Flyer caught up with Elders last week at the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock (where she's been a professor of pediatrics since 1964), she had just gotten off the phone with a reporter from The New York Times, and she was preparing to embark on a 15-city speaking tour to promote her autobiography, Joycelyn Elders, M.D.: From Sharecropper's Daughter to Surgeon General of the United States of America, co-written with David Chanoff. She'll be in Memphis on Thursday, October 10th, for the annual Book & Author Dinner (see box).
Elders' book is an attempt to present her side of the controversies that surrounded her during her 18-month tenure as surgeon general. Already reviled by conservatives for advocating abortion rights and condom distribution in schools, Elders drew fire — and censure from the Clinton administration — when she suggested that legalizing drugs might help reduce crime and that the idea should be studied. Almost immediately afterward, her son Kevin was arrested for cocaine possession, in what she still believes was a frame-up designed to embarrass her and the president.
The last straw came in December 1994 at a United Nations conference on AIDS, when, in response to a question, Elders said that masturbation was a part of human sexuality and thus should be included in the sex-education curriculum. Her unfortunate choice of words, however, was "perhaps it should be taught," conjuring up images of kids learning how to grope themselves. At the time, Clinton had just been humiliated by seeing the Republicans take control of Congress, and he was trying to distance himself from the "liberal" label. For the sake of political expedience, it was clear that Elders would have to go.
And she's not at all sorry about it. Relieved to be free of the pressure-cooker atmosphere in Washington, today Elders has returned to her original occupation as a pediatric endocrinologist. Part of her day is devoted to teaching, the rest to seeing patients. She treats children whose hormonal systems, for one reason or another, have gone awry, resulting in growth abnormalities, thyroid problems, ambiguous genitalia, or diabetes.
This is the job she was doing back in 1987, when then-Governor Bill Clinton asked her to head the Arkansas Department of Health. "He said he really wanted to turn the health department around," Elders remembers. Her task — in a mostly rural state whose residents were burdened with problems such as infant mortality, teenage pregnancy, and lack of education — was to find a way to get information and services to the people who needed them most. Despite her inexperience in the field of public health, Elders excelled at the job, which led to her appointment as U.S. surgeon general when Clinton took office in 1993.
Elders' career is impressive for its Horatio Alger aspects; she literally started with nothing. Born Minnie Lee Jones in Schaal, Arkansas, a tiny settlement 30 miles from Clinton's birthplace of Hope, she often had to miss school in order to help her sharecropping family with planting and harvesting. Despite this, her grades were good enough to earn a scholarship to Philander Smith College in Little Rock, where she decided to become a physician after hearing a talk by Edith Irby Jones, the first black student at the University of Arkansas Medical School. After college, she served in the Army's medical corps, and then used the G.I. Bill to attend Jones' alma mater.
Until she entered college, Elders herself had never visited a doctor. She knows firsthand what it's like to have no access to medical care. And having lived in abject poverty herself, she takes offense at those who pass judgment on the less fortunate. For example, Elders knows that to an underprivileged young woman, contraception can provide the means to control her life and future. That's why she gets furious when members of the religious right — whom she accuses of having "a deep-down need to control other people's lives" — try to prevent teenagers from learning about contraception.
"If you decide the policy, you've got the power," she says. "Some of those [conservatives] are the same ones who fought integration. I remember them when they had sheets over their heads."
When it comes to matters like abortion and homosexuality, Elders thinks these folks should mind their own business. "Who decides what goes on in people's bedrooms? They talk about 'family values.' Every family has values; mine may be different from yours." As for masturbation, she doesn't understand why people are so uptight about a harmless behavior. "It's those old Victorian values," she theorizes. "That it's a sin against God, [that the Bible prohibits] spilling semen on the ground."
On sexuality issues, the moral battlefront seems clearly demarcated. But on the question of drug legalization, there are advocates and opponents on both sides, liberal and conservative. Elders maintains that legalization has been a success in countries where it's been enacted, such as the Netherlands, and she doesn't think it leads to widespread addiction.
"If drugs were more available, there will be more users, but not more addicts. Only 5 percent [of those who take drugs] become addicted." If drugs were legalized in the U.S., says Elders, they would be sold "at centers and clinics. I'm not talking about putting drugs on the grocery-store shelves like we do cigarettes."
But wouldn't legalization send the message to kids that drugs are okay? "We need to educate young people not to use drugs, and we need to keep it out of their hands," Elders explains. "But we don't need to make them criminals [if they do use drugs]. Once they get out of prison, only 20 percent [of those serving time on drug charges] will ever get a job."
Her son Kevin seems to have beaten those odds. After serving 105 days in prison, he was released last December 15th. "He had a year of intensive treatment before he went to prison," says Elders. "Kevin now has a job selling cars, and he goes to AA every day. I'm not saying it's right that my son used or bought drugs, but the arrest may have been God's way of saving him."
It has now been almost two years since Elders was asked to resign, and the position of surgeon general remains unfilled. She's not surprised, given the intense scrutiny that all of Clinton's appointees receive. "The only people he could get nominated are God and the pope," she quips, "and I'm not so sure about the pope."
Clinton actually did propose a successor, Dr. Henry Foster of Nashville, but that nominee failed to receive congressional approval after it was revealed that he'd performed a number of abortions in the past.
"Of course Henry Foster had performed abortions! He was an obstetrician-gynecologist!" says Elders. "I personally would not want an obstetrician-gynecologist who didn't know how to perform an abortion."
If Clinton is reelected, Elders believes, he will indeed appoint a new surgeon general, and she would advise him to choose someone from a less controversial specialty — say, orthopedics. Despite all the slings and arrows she suffered at the White House, she professes no ill will toward her former boss.
"I think Clinton is doing a fine job," she says, "and he just needs to keep doing what he's doing."
In the meantime, Elders will keep doing what she's doing now — speaking out.
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