Let's say there are 15 homeless cats and 15 people with homes. 5 people are willing to provide a home to a single cat regardless of claws, 5 people are willing to provide homes provided that the cats are declawed, and 5 people don't want a cat at all. 10 cats will be euthanized if declawing is not an option, but if it is an option only 5 will be euthanized. I don't see how the 5 cats whose chances of finding a home depends on the removal of claws benefit from an overzealous shaming of the procedure. Sure, ideally we would persuade the declawers to change their mind, but we're not putting any expectations on the people who don't want a cat at all so it doesn't seem fair to expect the declawers to take a cat under circumstances they wouldn't want.
The best interest of cat-kind would be served by treating declawing as something that should be avoided but not stigmatizing people who put declawing as a prerequisite for providing a cat a home. I don't know, I see a fair bit of moral ambiguity here where all we can do is look for the least bad option.
it's why i can't get behind isms and ists. the first victim is always intellectual honesty. you have to make peace with your own unavoidable hypocrisy and take it from there
I'm sort of proud of admitting my hypocrisy. It seems to me that the only way to avoid being a hypocrite is to be a saint of to have standards that are too low.
