Declawing cats is generally morally wrong.

The moral dilemna we find ourselves in when considering declawing a cat is this: Does the procedure itself cause the cat enough pain to reconsider? Is it wrong to cause the cat this pain or is it justified by the resulting claw-free cat? Does the procedure result in a cat who is unable to survive in the wild? Is it wrong to domesticate an animal to this degree of dependancy? The questions involve man's understanding of domestication. My opponent believes that cats need not be domesticated any further. I believe that domestication should be the responsible right of the pet owner. What do the experts say? Well, they say that the cat has not undergone as much domestication as other domesticated animals, including work animals, and that the cat is more like its wild-cat ancestors than other domesticated animal/wild-animal ancestor relationships. Let's come to terms with what the term domestication means and how it applies here: According to dictionary.com domestication could be described as any and all processes necessary to cionvert or tame an animal to live in close association with human beings as a pet or work animal, and usually, creates a dependancy so that the animal loses its ability to live in the wild. Basically, man changes the cats association it has with the wild by altering its survival chances in the wild by removing the claws. This takes the cat out of its natural circle of life position where its predators were small prey in the wild. It makes cats dependant upon their owners to provide for them what they would otherwise naturally provide for themselves -- food, water, and safe non-life threatening living envioronments. We must both agree that by ts very definition declawing a cat does: make more closely an association with human beings, the relationship, pet, between man and cat. Declawing can create a dependancy so that the animal loses its ability to live in the world without such a dependancy on human beings and declawing a cat does cause this sort of dependancy through the lowered survival chances a cat has in the wild without its claws. So, declawing is an act of domestication. With this definition it could be reasonably argued that simply feeding, watering, and providing shelter for a cat is part of the domestication process. These functions of domestication I do not believe my opponent has a problem with, so it could be assumed that she does not have a problem with domestication, in general, but just this particular process of domestication. I wonder if she considers it to be an act of domestication at all? Surely with the definition she could see how it fits. I believe that domestication should be the right of the owner. Let me use the example that my opponent has admitted she has no experience with: The pitbull. I have a friend who has a pit bull. The dog is very tame and very people-friendly. However, because the dog the *potential* to cause serious injuries to other animals and other people, my friend uses a muzzle whenever taking the dog into public places. The reason he uses the muzzle is because he understands that the dog is legally his property and when claiming the dog as his pet, he is responsible for anything and everything that goes wrong behaviorally with his dog. Therefore, if any man is hurt or injured by the dog the pet owner, I repeat, the PET OWNER (emphasis on owner) is responsible. Likewise, cats have the *potential* to do harm to both people and animals and they do. There are 22,000 reported cases of cat scratches and many more that go unreported. Cats carry the disease that causes "cat scratch fever." Cats also transmit the disease Feline Immunodeficiency Virus onto other pets. Pet owners should have the right to declaw their cats because it is a safe and reasonable procedure that affords all the same rights to pain management as a human surgery, such as general anaesthetics during the procedure and pain medication management after the procedure. What the result is is a better relationship between pet owner and cat because the cat simply does not cause any more problems with its claws. And while my opponent argues that cats do not scratch without provokation, I personally have been scratched a number of times throughout my life by different cats and I have never provoked them in any way to deserve to have my eyes swiped at or my arms scratched and hands bitten. The bottom line is: The pain argument is only good if the pain of the procedure does not result in a better quality of life and quality of relationships with the cat. Remember, the cat is being pulled out of its wild circle of life relationship where it preys on small rodents and vermin to be accepted as a pet and taken care of by humans. If people do not want to make these hard domestication decisions they should not accept the role of domestication and that of pet owner because they will not take the necessary actions to build a harmonious relationship between man and animal. People like my opponent are unwilling to take the necessary steps to protect others from their animals: they will not muzzle their dogs and they will not declaw their cats. They would rather pawn the responsiblity off on their animals to exercise trained control over their behavior, sadly forgetting that these animals are equipped to take the lives of other animals and injure people whenever they choose. My argument is simple enough: Leave the processes of domestication up to the INDIVIDUAL pet owner because the individual pet owner is the one who must live with their pets and be responsible for their pet's behaviors.