MICHIGAN – Michigan Lawmakers are looking to make it illegal to Declaw your cat in their state.
The bill follows New York’s ban last year to only allow declawing for therapeutic purposes.
“Declawed cats can suffer long-term physical complications as a result of declawing – it’s not just a fancy manicure. It’s painful, unnecessary, and needs to stop,” said Assemblymember Quirk.
Declawing is illegal, or considered unethical, in much of the rest of the world. Eight California cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, enacted the first laws banning the surgery in North America. Since the declaw bans went into effect, the number of cats abandoned to city shelters have decreased for multiple cities each year. “I attribute the decrease in relinquishment of cats to our shelters to the decrease in behavioral problems that are the result of declawing. We strongly believe that a ban on declawing saves the lives of cats,” explained the Los Angeles Animal Services Department General Manager, Brenda Barnette.
Common reasons expressed for performing declaw surgery are readily refuted by an increasing volume of evidence from scientific experts, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. These health authorities have long held that declawing cats “is not advised” to protect people, even those with the most weakened immune systems. Recent studies have found that declawed cats are more likely to bite, with the unintended consequence that immuncompromised people are actually being put at greater risk.
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