Initiative Petition 28 (IP28) is a bold, far-reaching ballot initiative in Oregon that challenges the legal loopholes enabling and legitimizing pervasive animal abuse and killing. If it passes, it would make history, creating a ripple effect across the U.S. and the world. 

Also known as the People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions (PEACE) Act, IP28 would remove exemptions in Oregon’s animal cruelty laws that permit the abuse, neglect, and sexual assault of animals, shifting the conversation from regulating cruelty to ending it.

Animal abuse is legally defined in Oregon as the intentional, knowing, or reckless injury of an animal. Yet slaughter, hunting, fishing, experimentation, forced breeding, and other so-called “animal husbandry” practices all involve intentional injury and remain legal.

These exemptions leave most animals legally unprotected and enable cruelty and violence across numerous industries. By eliminating them, IP28 would ensure that animals can no longer be intentionally injured or killed, forcibly impregnated, or denied adequate food, water, and shelter, whether in farms, in labs, at rodeos, exhibitions, in transport, or in the wild. 

IP28 also includes a rehabilitation program as an alternative to criminal penalties, focused on rebuilding empathy. Additionally, it establishes a Humane Transition Fund to support job retraining, income assistance, animal care, conservation, rewilding, and community transition. 

Since the vast majority of humans can survive and thrive without harming animals, IP28 envisions a society that prioritizes compassion and protects all individuals, regardless of the bodies they were born into. It affirms that human needs can be met while allowing animals to live free from exploitation.

The campaign behind Yes On IP28 is not naive. They do not expect the initiative to pass in 2026. The goal is to build the infrastructure necessary to consistently return to the ballot, shift public consciousness, and continue forcing the conversation until it succeeds.

This strategy is not new. The women’s suffrage movement repeatedly brought the issue to the ballot in 30 states for over a decade before women finally won the right to vote. In Oregon, women succeeded on their sixth attempt. Those earlier efforts laid the groundwork for lasting change.

Most people remain unaware of the cruelty animals endure in all animal farming and other industries that use and kill them. While dogs, cats, and some wild animals have legal protections, most other animals, with the same emotions and capacity to suffer, are deemed acceptable to harm and kill. IP28 challenges this ethical contradiction, helping to educate the public about the inherent suffering animals face when they are used for human benefit. 

Small welfare gains can play a role, but IP28 is playing the long game, inviting us to think bigger and ask for what we want: liberation from enslavement and legal protection for all animals. This initiative advances activism that tackles injustice at its root and is celebrated each February during Animal Activist Appreciation Month.

IP28 embodies the courage, persistence, and commitment needed to create legislation that upholds respect, empathy, and freedom from enslavement for all beings. By honoring animals’ right to their own bodies and lives, we can build a kinder, more just world for them, for humans, and for the planet we share.

Help Oregon become the first state to vote on animal freedom!

Nearly two-thirds of the signatures needed are in to make the ballot — it has until July 2, 2026, to hit the goal. 

We need all hands on deck!

Oregonians can get involved now, and visitors in April, May, or June can volunteer to collect signatures too. Contact lia@idausa.org to participate.