For quite a while the American state of New Jersey has been debating a ban on declawing cats. It looks as if it is bogged down in the legislature to me but there is hope that the draft law will pass one day.
As usual the veterinarians lobby the politicians through their association to stop the declaw ban becoming law because declawing is bread and butter to them. Money out of pain with no gain, I call it. They depend on declawing to turn a profit which is sick.
One of these vet representatives is Mike Yurkus of the New Jersey Veterinary Medical Association – a veterinarian himself so he should know better. Google cannot find a photograph of him on the internet. He said:
We are not pro-declaw. We do very few. We are anti-abandonment and anti-euthanasia…In some cases, it’s the only way to keep a cat in a loving home..
What he is saying is that they declaw cats to stop owners abandoning their cats to rescue centers where they may be euthanised. They declaw to keep the cat in their homes. Why is this argument so profoundly wrong, indeed immoral and thoughtless?
The answer is simple. You know the old adage: two wrong don’t make a right? Well, this is a good example. The first wrong is that the person who acquired a cat and who wants to declaw him or her should not have adopted the cat in the first place because they were unsuited to the task of caring for a domestic cat. People who insist on declawing their cats should not be allowed to own a cat, period. Often they are ignorant of what the operation entails and the vets don’t tell them. They dress up the operation as a ‘declawing’ when it is 10 partial amputations. Shame. The second wrong which tries to correct the first wrong is to declaw the cat. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
That is my message to the vets of New Jersey. Do you understand that simple message, vets of NJ? It is message that they appear to be totally ignorant of. You cannot justify declawing cats – a terribly brutal and inhumane operation done for the convenience of the owner – just because the owner is the wrong person to own a cat. Wake up please and stop using this pathetic and stupid excuse for brutalising young cats.
SOME PAGES ON COMPLICATIONS OF DECLAWING:
