A commitment to animal welfare began for Elizabeth* during her childhood in Minneapolis, where she befriended a neighbor who was involved with the local humane society. The pair volunteered as dog walkers, and on the weekends, they hosted informal adoption events at the local drive-in movie theater. Then, around 1957, when the Humane Society of the United States was just three years old, “I got ahold of some brochures from the HSUS,” says Elizabeth, who was then in the fifth grade. One of them detailed the number of cats and dogs euthanized in the shelter system due to low rates of pet adoption at the time. The brochures “were rather gruesome,” Elizabeth recalls. But the information had a lasting effect: Elizabeth became an avid supporter of spay/neuter. She launched her own Junior Humane Society, sharing what she’d learned with her classmates and collecting money for the HSUS.
Education in ethics
While attending medical school, Elizabeth had another opportunity to advocate for animals. Thanks to those HSUS brochures, “I had known the term ‘anti-vivisectionist’ from the time I was 9 years old,” she says. Required to practice surgery on animals, Elizabeth tried to negotiate an alternative on moral grounds—only to be told she’d flunk out if she didn’t participate. “I had pretty devastating choices,” she says. “I didn’t have skills, I didn’t have cash, I was on full financial aid.” She did what she could—saving a guinea pig and a rat from euthanasia—but felt compelled to do more. After graduating, Elizabeth took a state psychiatry job that allowed her to designate a charity to receive donations on her behalf. She chose the HSUS. It felt like “penance” for the experience in medical school, she says.
Advocate for all
Animal welfare isn’t the only cause close to Elizabeth’s heart. During the AIDS epidemic, she helped coordinate a volunteer force. She also served in a leadership role with American Association of Physicians for Human Rights (now the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association), participated in a group for women in medicine (members still attend annual retreats) and helped found the Lesbian Health Fund. And when it comes to animals, she supports more than spay/neuter. “I like that the farm animals are getting more protection,” Elizabeth says, noting how the massive factory farms of today bear little resemblance to the small family farms she remembers from her childhood in Minnesota. Still, she has a special place in her heart for dogs, having loved many throughout her life: Taffy the cocker spaniel, Teapot the deaf Maltese, Mordecai the Yorkie…the list goes on. Today, she and her wife, Anna, share their home with Louis, a bichon frise, and Lucy, a Havanese. They’re proud to continue donating to the HSUS. “I believe in it,” she says. “I don’t want animals to suffer.”
*Elizabeth prefers to be identified by her first name only.
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