Last week, Craig Rosebraugh finally got what he wanted. As he was driving a car full of television sets down Southwest Park Avenue, Portland police swooped in on horses, removed him from the car and slapped handcuffs on him. Press cameras flashed and cheering supporters linked arms to block a police car as officers drove Rosebraugh away. The television sets were reportedly going to be smashed by protestors for Buy Nothing Day, an anti-commercial boycott on the day after Thanksgiving. The only problem is, the high-profile arrest wasn't over Rosebraugh's pet cause. His real passion, the one for which he gets little respect, is animal rights. Eighteen months ago, Rosebraugh helped form the Liberation Collective, a social-justice nonprofit. Now 75 members strong, the Portland group survives on a shoestring budget of less than $10,000. Although the group's stated goal is to end all oppression, its primary mission to date has been to stop neurological research using cats at Legacy Health System's Good Samaritan Hospital. On behalf of Legacy's felines, Rosebraugh and his group have chained their necks to gates with bike locks, trespassed into the hospital's corporate office and held a candlelight vigil in front of a researcher's West Hills home. Rosebraugh has also been loosely linked to two acts of eco-vandalism this summer: the June release of 10,000 minks at a Mount Angel fur farm and the firebombing of a Redmond horse-slaughtering plant in July. Rosebraugh has emerged, at age 25, as one of the leaders in the animal-rights movement in Oregon. Like other leaders in the more radical factions of the movement, Rosebraugh is impassioned, idealistic and unwilling to compromise. He's also waging a war that seems absurd--and futile. The collective's chosen goal--ending biomedical research--is one of the hardest fights for animal-rights activists to win. Moreover, the group's specific target, Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital, currently experiments on only four cats and kills just one a year. It's not exactly a feline massacre, especially compared with the 46,000 dogs and cats put to death annually at Oregon shelters. Yet to Rosebraugh and other collective members, it's no less horrific. Marilyn and Fred Rosebraugh say they're surprised at how their son turned out. Growing up in Tigard, Craig showed no penchant for animal-rights activism other than his habit of picking up stray pets and liking veggies better than beef. He was a quiet and studious kid in high school whose passions were soccer and skateboarding. He talked about studying business administration in college. By all accounts, it was a typical suburban childhood. Today, Rosebraugh's life still seems conventional.He drives a car, receives financial support from his parents to study political science at Marylhurst College and lives in a house with his friends. Next year, Rosebraugh hopes to attend law school at Lewis & Clark College. But take a closer look, and you'll see a young man who is fiercely living his beliefs. Tall and lanky, Rosebraugh looks the part of a tortured radical. He shaves his head, wears a metal choker and dresses mostly in black. Also, Rosebraugh spends most of his free time running the Liberation Collective, whose office is in the back of his two-story house in Northeast Portland. The office is a small, tidy room equipped with a computer and plastered with anti-Legacy posters, which collective members made using pictures of Rosebraugh's cat, Zelda. Everyone who lives with Rosebraugh is vegan, which means they don't use animal products: no meat, dairy or traditional medicines developed through animal testing. Some, however, will wear leather shoes if it saves some money. It's clearly a household of activists walking their talk. And of anyone in the collective, Rosebraugh seems the most committed. Along the path from skate rat to activist, Rosebraugh says he never experienced a single, life-changing epiphany, such as a tour of a slaughterhouse or a hunting trip with a rural uncle. Rather, his thinking evolved in high school, when he began listening to political English punk bands like Crass. Then he chose animal rights as a term-paper subject during a writing class at Portland State University. Rosebraugh says he became convinced that humans were horribly, utterly wrong in thinking that they have the right to use animals as food or tools of research. People, he says, once used the same logic to justify slavery, the oppression of women and the extermination of Jews. "I myself don't have a strong liking for animals," says Rosebraugh. (His mother scoffs at this.) "It's that I see an injustice." For six years, Rosebraugh volunteered with Portland's People for Animal Rights. Then, in March of 1996, Rosebraugh and five other PAR volunteers decided the plight of animals might warrant civil disobedience. That sentiment led them to split with PAR. Before the Liberation Collective formed, activists protested the circus or the zoo once a year, says Jeff Morehead, a 38-year-old carpenter who helped Rosebraugh found the collective. "For a lot of people that was enough," he says. "But some people felt it was time to do something more dynamic, along the lines of Gandhi or Martin Luther King." Other animal-rights groups in Portland say they're glad the collective formed. "The front is long and there's room for a variety of approaches," says Sheri Speede, Northwest director for In Defense of Animals. "Civil disobedience is always an effective tool in social-justice movements." Americans in general and Oregonians in particular are nuts for animals. We mourned the death of Hondo the Hillsboro police dog last year, condemned the off-duty police officer who shot George the Labrador, and now we're fretting over the health of Keiko the killer whale. 'There's no question there's a surge of interest in animals," says Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States, the nation's most powerful animal-welfare organization. Pacelle says his group's membership has soared from 25,000 to 5 million since 1970. There are 6,000 animal shelters in the nation, Pacelle adds. Also, an estimated 600 animal-rights groups have ralliedaround everything from eating meat and wearing fur to the abuse of animals on farms or in entertainment. The movement itself dates back as far as 1822, when the first animal-protection law was passed in England. Anti-vivisection was all the rage in Victorian England until the turn of the century, when scientists began developing vaccines by using animals for testing. The movement was reenergized in 1975 with the publication of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation. The book did for the animal-rights movement what Rachel Carson's Silent Spring did for environmentalism. It raised consciousness to such a level that thousands of people began questioning lifestyle choices and the institutional use of animals in laboratories, on farms and in zoos. Singer's point was that humans should balance the good achieved from using the animals against the suffering. Not to do so, he wrote, is "speciesism," a sin equal to racism. Scores of more radical groups have organized since the late 1970s. Perhaps the most influential of those is the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a group that began in a Maryland basement and quickly became famous for its undercover photos of animal abuse in research labs. Although PETA still tackles the subject of animal research, it has recently become better known for playful media stunts, like enlisting supermodel Naomi Campbell to go naked rather than wear fur for an advertising campaign. PETA activists dog American institutions like the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile and throw pies in furriers' faces. A few weeks ago at the Meier & Frank department store in Washington Square, PETA activist Alison Green threw a whipped-tofu pie in the face of Oscar de la Renta, the internationally renowned designer. "Oscar de la Renta is a shameful, out-of-date relic with blood on his hands and pie on his face," read PETA's Nov. 11 press release. Although its aims are similar, the Liberation Collective is the antithesis of PETA. With 500,000 members and an annual budget of more than $12 million, PETA is like a non-violent Irish Republican Army within the animal-rights movement. It's entrenched, well-funded and well-organized. By contrast, the collective seems as puny as a ragtag band of anti-government yokels muttering about black helicopters. Liberation Collective leaders have a sense of marketing but lack the sophistication or resources to become effective. The group recently mailed 3,000 letters to health professionals in Portland asking for support in the campaign against feline research at Good Samaritan Hospital. Rosebraugh says he received only one positive response. Rosebraugh seems to view disappointments as part of the struggle. One Liberation Collective brochure about nonviolence explains, "Satyagraha, Gandhi wrote, 'is the vindication of truth not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but on one's self." Unless activists are content tilting at windmills, they need an enemy. Less than a month after the collective had formed, Rosebraugh chose the work of Dr. Jane Macpherson, a researcher working at the R.S. Dow Neurological Sciences Institute at Good Samaritan Hospital. He cites two reasons. Although Oregon Health Sciences University and the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center in Hillsboro use and kill more animals in research than does Macpherson, Good Samaritan Hospital is more visible. "We chose the Legacy campaign because it's in the heart of Northwest Portland," Rosebraugh says. Second, Macpherson's work involves cats, a species more likely to stir public sympathy than rats or mice. Macpherson's work helps patients with balance disorders caused by Parkinson's disease or brain injuries, according to Dr. Lutz Kiesow, head of research at Legacy. Macpherson declined to speak with WW; her lab was also off-limits. According to Legacy, Macpherson currently uses four cats raised for research. Her work is supported by two National Institute of Health grants totaling $311,000. It takes Macpherson four or five years to complete the experiments on each cat. She takes a year or two to train a cat to stand on four metal balance sensors. Then, a veterinarian injects an antibiotic drug into its head to destroy part of its inner ear, simulating a brain injury. The most invasive part of the research occurs when electrodes are implanted on the cat's body, underneath the skin. The wires meet in a monitoring box surgically attached to the animal's head. Over the next three or four years, Macpherson observes the cat and how it uses its vision, the vestibular system inside its ears and the pads of its paws to maintain balance. At the end of that cycle, the cat is killed. In 20 years of balance studies at Legacy, hospital officials say, roughly 20 cats have been killed. Despite repeated requests from Rosebraugh, Legacy refuses to discuss Macpherson's research with the Liberation Collective. "The Liberation Collective doesn't want to discuss anything," says Kiesow. "These are young people with a quasi-religious zeal. They are a cult. This is what they've found to believe in." Claudia Brown, spokeswoman for Legacy, says other researchers have advised the hospital to ignore the activists. Rosebraugh and the collective have specific concerns. First, they question whether cats are the best models for balance studies. "You can drop a cat on its head and it will always land on its feet," says Rosebraugh. In response, Legacy officials argue that cats' brains send signals much in the same way as humans' do--they just respond faster. Rosebraugh also points out that similar research has already been done. Kiesow says this criticism ignores a basic tenet of all research--that experiments must be duplicated to validate discoveries. Even if those concerns were addressed, it seems Rosebraugh would still oppose Macpherson's research. In some ways, his philosophy is like that of environmentalists who espouse a zero-cut logging policy on public lands. "When the day comes that Legacy stops using cats," Rosebraugh says, "we'll go after something else." Since April 21, 1996, the Liberation Collective has held one to two protests against Legacy every month, ranging in size from a few people to upwards of 100. Almost all of the 30 protests have been nonviolent. Protesters have dressed up in cat suits and carried a homemade puppet of a bloody vivisectionist. Arrests generally occur when demonstrators chain themselves to gates and to each other using locks and PVC tubes covered in duct tape. Activists say protesting is liberating. "I was having such a good time last time I got arrested, I was smiling on the Channel 8 news," says collective member Morehead. "I don't think I looked as serious as I could have." "Just the act of protesting makes you feel really good," adds L.J. Pickering, 19, a collective member and one of Rosebraugh's roommates. "Like you have power. You're not confined by the government." Usually, however, the protests are quieter and include the same core group of about a dozen activists. During the last protest, on Nov. 23, four days before Thanksgiving, seven people walked silently in the rain from Northwest's Couch Park to Good Sam, where they set up a soggy post behind a banner. Two protests have targeted Macpherson specifically, a tactic activists call a "house demo." A year and a half ago, demonstrators canvassed in Macpherson's West Hills neighborhood. They went door to door informing people that their neighbor tortured cats. "We said, 'See, this is what your neighbor does for a living. See how she lives off taxpayers dollars,'" Morehead recalls. Earlier this year, Rosebraugh and others held a candlelight vigil in front of Macpherson's home, mourning the dead cats. Pro-life activists frequently use similar tactics against abortion doctors. It's hard to see how Rosebraugh and the Liberation Collective will be successful in their campaign against feline research at Legacy. Biomedical research is perhaps the hardest battle an animal-rights activist can pick. People can exist without hunting, wearing fur or even eating meat, but most people agree that Western medicine won't progress without using--and killing--at least some animals for research. Rhesus monkeys, for example, were used to develop the polio vaccine. Rats and mice were used to develop treatments for depression. Dogs, sheep, cows and pigs have acted as models testing surgical techniques for transplanting organs. If it weren't for animals, we wouldn't have the polio vaccine, says Jim Parker, spokesman for the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center. "All we would have today is a better iron lung." Still, by using cell cultures and computer models, American researchers have reduced their use of dogs and cats by half since the 1970s. "It's not like the community of researchers who use animals are avoiding alternatives," says Bryan Ogden, a veterinarian at Oregon Health Sciences University. "But to say we can't learn anything more from animals requires an extreme amount of ignorance." The Liberation Collective's best chance at stopping Macpherson's research lies in proving that her work is both cruel and unnecessary. That's hard to do without access to her lab or Legacy's private records regarding animal care, especially given the group's meager resources. Besides a smattering of news stories and TV clips, the Legacy campaign hasn't received much media attention. "I've questioned whether protesting all the time is smart," says Speede of In Defense of Animals, a group that usually holds only a handful of protests each year. "The media gets tired of it after a while." "The Legacy campaign hasn't been very effective yet," admits Eileen Stark, an activist who attends the collective's monthly meeting at Laughing Horse Books. "But I'm hoping there will some kind of result from this. Craig is very committed." Despite countless hours spent protesting at Legacy, Rosebraugh's immediate future is more likely to be influenced by two press releases he dashed off this summer. Rosebraugh wrote the releases after vandals in Oregon liberated 10,000 minks in June and torched a slaughterhouse in July. Immediately following both acts of monkey wrenching, Rosebraugh was contacted by someone from the Animal Liberation Front, a radical underground animal-rights organization so destructive that it has been placed on the FBI's terrorist list. Rosebraugh says he was chosen to announce the ALF's role in the eco-vandalism because, although his group is nonviolent, the collective is sympathetic to the ALF's beliefs. Although he claims absolutely no connection to either crime and says he doesn't know who is responsible, Rosebraugh has apparently become the best lead to solving the case. Since June, he's been interviewed four times by agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He says he testified at a grand jury hearing in October. "I only answered those questions that let me talk about the Liberation Collective or our philosophy," says Rosebraugh, adding that he plans to refuse further questioning. He wrote this in the group's newsletter: "I do now feel that the best response to grand juries is to ignore them and refuse to cooperate with them completely. They will be unable to function if no one is cooperating and with enough public outcry they will disappear. It will result in many people being locked up, but our souls and minds will remain free." If Rosebraugh is subpoenaed again but refuses questioning, he could wind up serving 18 months in jail for contempt of court. Such talk worries Marilyn Rosebraugh. She wants Craig to study law next year, as planned, so he will be better equipped for future battles. "It's very frightening," she says. "He's a very peaceful young man. He wouldn't hurt a fly." Medical Breakthroughs Due to Animal Research 1885
Louis Pasteurdevelops the rabies vaccine using dogs and rabbits. Pasteur had earlier learned through animal research that infectious diseases were produced by microorganisms. 1891
The diphtheria antitoxin is produced by drawing a serum from horses. 1921
Insulin is discovered by two Canadian doctors, Frederick Banting and Charles Best, through tests on stray dogs. Without insulin, some 500,000 diabetics would die annually. 1930s
Using mice and rabbits, medical researchers develop therapeutic uses of sulfa drugs, which were the only antibacterial drugs available until the development of antibiotics. Tests on many species of animals lead to the prevention of tetanus. 1940s
Methods for treating rheumatoid arthritis are developed using rabbits and monkeys. Work on guinea pigs and rabbits leads to a treatment for whooping cough. 1950s
Researchers discover DNA through experiments on rats and mice. Chemotherapy is developed through research on monkeys, rabbits and rodents. 1952
Jonas Salk develops killed-virus polio vaccine. The following year, Albert Sabin develops a live-virus vaccine. Hundreds of thousands of Rhesus monkeys are used to produce and test the vaccines. 1959
Two British scientists publish a paper detailing the three R's of animal experimentation--replace, reduce, refine--which today define the search for alternatives. 1960s
A rubella vaccine is tested on monkeys. Researchers develop therapeutic uses of cortisone on rabbits and monkeys. 1970s
An operation to replace the hip istested on sheep. The treatment of leprosy is improved through testing on armadillos and monkeys. Dogs are used to develop behavior therapies to treat eating disorders. 1980s
Scientists begin researching gene-replacement therapy using mice and rats. Vaccines are created for Hepatitis A and B. In vitro fertilization techniques are developed with mice and primates. 1990s
Improved cholera vaccines are tested on rabbits and primates. 1996
Carl Sagan receives a marrow-grafting surgery that prolongs his life by six months. Although "conflicted" about animal testing, he acknowledges that the process that prolonged his life was developed using dogs and mice.
Top of page
Milestones in the Animal-rights Movement
1780
English barrister Jeremy Bentham asks the now-famous question about animals: "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" 1822
The British Parliament passes the British Cruelty to Animals Act, specifically banning cruelty to work animals. It's considered the world's first animal protection. 1954
The Humane Society of the United States is founded. 1966
Congress passes the Animal Welfare Act, overseeing the care and treatment of lab, circus, zoo and farm animals. Animal-rights activists say it's still too weak, however, and that the laboratory-oversight committees established by the law are "rubber stamp committees." 1975 Philosopher Peter Singer authors Animal Liberation, the "bible" of the animal-rights movement. 1980
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is founded. 1981
Alex Pacheco, co-founder of PETA, releases photos of monkey abuse at a Maryland laboratory, revitalizing the fight against vivisection. That same year, animal advocates found the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing. 1983
Tom Regan writes The Case for Animal Rights. According to Regan, most animals have inherent rights, like invisible "no trespassing" signs hung around their necks. 1985
Congress reforms the Animal Welfare Act. The new law requires researchers to consider the psychological well-being of nonhuman primates in research facilities. 1987
Arsonists cause $4.5 million in damages to an animal-research laboratory at University of California?Davis. 1989
Animal Liberation Front vandals wreck Dr. John Orem's sleep-disorder lab at Texas Tech University. Five cats are liberated. A month later, someone releases 1,000 animals from research facilities at the University of Arizona. 1994
Oregonians pass an initiative banning the hunting of bears and cougars by dogs and the baiting of bears. Hunting advocates unsuccessfully try to overturn the law in 1996. 1995 Thanks to the efforts of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Oregon Legislature passes the first state law making some acts of cruelty to animals
a felony. 1996
A group of AIDS activists picket World Animal Awareness Week in Washington, D.C., accusing animal-rights activists of opposing research that could lead to medical breakthroughs. Researchers call it evidence of a backlash. 1997
Thanks to pressure from In Defense of Animals, the Yamhill County Pound stops selling stray dogs and cats to Oregon research facilities. Now, no Oregon pounds sell animals for research.
Top of page
A Primer on Oregon's Animal-Rights Groups LIBERATION COLLECTIVE
Portland group founded in 1996; 75 members. In addition to protesting the use of cats at Legacy, the group organized an animal-research conference last year. The collective has also been involved in publicizing former Oregon teacher Rick Bogel's national protest tour of seven primate-research centers. Liberation Collective members have also protested Nike; railed against materialism; and cooked meals for Food Not Bombs, a group that feeds the homeless. IN DEFENSE OF ANIMALS
National group, Portland office founded in 1995; 75,000 members nationally. Originally founded in California, IDA protests the wearing of fur, animal research and circuses. IDA is the national sponsor of Fur-Free Friday, a fur protest on the day after Thanksgiving. In Portland, IDA is fighting a proposed expansion of the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center in Hillsboro. Northwest director Sheri Speede says she's also investigating the work of scientists who use primates to research eating disorders and the effectiveness of infant formulas. FERAL CAT COALITION
Portland group founded in 1995. The coalition has already spayed 1,600 stray cats throughout Portland by working with hundreds of people who feed feral cats.
ANIMAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND
National group, Portland office founded in 1996; 50,000 members nationally. The ALDF prosecutes animal-cruelty cases and works toward better animal-protection legislation. Pamela Frasch, who runs the Portland office, helped pass the first state law making some forms of animal cruelty a felony. The group also works on the Great Ape Legal Project, a national legislative effort to get personhood status for great apes. PEOPLE FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS
Founded as a local chapter of PETA in 1984, became its own group in 1986; 250 to 300 members. PAR spends much of its energy improving conditions at Multnomah County Animal Control. PAR also hosts an adoption program for pets at Clackamas Town Center. The group promotes vegetarianism and occasionally protests the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center, fur wearing and the use of animals in circuses and rodeos. OREGON HUMANE SOCIETY
Founded in 1868; 25,000 supporters. The Oregon Humane Society runs animal shelters that aid 15,000 animals a year. The society also runs educational programs for school children and investigates about 1,200 abuse and neglect cases annually.
Top of page |
