"Brandy Alexandre" wrote in message
...
bewtifulfreak wrote in

There are regional and cultural issues surrounding everything we do and
one country will be in line with it while another will not. Glom on to
whatever fits within your ideal, but don't discount everything that
does not as "just wrong." Because by and large it isn't. It's just an
opinion.

As I said, there is anecdotal evidence and professional information
indicating that it's not just opinion that declawing can and often does harm
cats: it's fact. That's not hystrionic and overzelous, that's just plain
fact. I support you in living your life in whatever way you see fit that
doesn't harm another being: I don't care about your religious preference,
your sexual preference, what you wear, what you eat, if you smoke (as long
as you do so considerately), or anything else. I don't care if you belive
in God or whether the moon is made of green cheese. *That's* all a matter
of opinion and personal preference, or, in the case of believing the moon is
made of green cheese, harmless ignorance. Causing injury to another being -
particularly for your own convenience, but for any reason whatsoever - is
certainly *not* harmless, and thus, not merely a matter of personal
preference, unless you are the type of person who believes that someone
should be allowed to exercise their preference for things such as wife
beating.


How many industrialized nations are there in the world
anyway? Twenty of them have banned declawing.

Twenty different nations agreeing on the same thing seems like far more than
"opinion" to me, and certainly argues against it being a matter of regional
and cultural preference, unless we are to believe all twenty of those
nations have the same regional and cultural bias, which seems highly
unlikely. The only two countries that haven't banned it are much more
likely to share a cultural and regional bias, that most likely being the
bias of putting the love of money above all else.


Half of them admit
there's still an underground for it and the results have been similar
to the banning of abortion--disfigurement and death. If that's what
you want to happen to cats, fine. I think you're cruel.

I don't want that to happen. I don't want murder to happen either, but it
does. But does that mean we should make it legal? I'm not comparing
declawing to murder, but the fact that something happens illegally doesn't
justify making it legal. And for someone who encourages people to discuss
things rationally in order to make their opinions more accesible, accusing
me of wanting cats to suffer and calling me cruel because I'm against
declawing is not only irrational, but hypocritical as well.

Ann

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For more information on the anti-declawing issue I would recommend The
Declawing Information Site:

http://stopdeclaw.com