PETA Supporters to Descend on OHSU Board Meeting in Defense of Pigs

For Immediate Release:
October 25, 2023

Contact:
Kendall Davis 202-483-7382

Portland, Ore. – Wearing pig masks and holding signs that read, “Swap Pigs for Simulators,” PETA supporters will rally inside Oregon Health & Science University’s (OHSU) board of directors meeting on Friday, urging the school to end its invasive training procedures on live pigs in its obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) physician residency training program.

When:    Friday, Oct. 27, 2:15 p.m.

Where:    Robertson Life Sciences Building, Room 3A001, 3rd Fl, 2730 S. Moody Ave., Portland

PETA supporters urge OHSU’s board of directors to end pig mutilations during a previous protest. Photo: PETA

“The pig body count continues to rise at OHSU, where pigs are sliced open and killed during cruel OB/GYN training drills,” says PETA Vice President Shalin Gala. “PETA is calling on OHSU to adopt superior, non-animal technology—as other OB/GYN residency training programs have already done—that benefits physicians and patients without harming pigs.”

Records obtained by PETA show that at least 64 OB/GYN residents have cut into up to 48 live female pigs, dissected their organs, and performed other invasive surgeries on them in attempts to learn human medicine. All the animals were later killed.

Among other actions, PETA sent a letter to Dr. Amy Stenson, director of the university’s OB/GYN residency program, and wrote to Dr. Aaron Caughey, the school’s OB/GYN department chair, noting that dozens of similar programs in the U.S. use animal-free training methods, such as realistic human-patient simulators, advanced virtual reality systems, and interactive computer models.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.