New Missouri law will stop local authorities creating laws affecting veterinary practices

The title sounds a little bit involved and boring but it is actually quite important. There is a bill (a proposed law that is going through the government) being discussed by Missouri's legislature. It is called SB 115.

Missouri legislature. Picture in the public domain in my view.

SB 115

It is a proposed law which prevents any lesser legislatures such as local authorities and city authorities from making laws concerning veterinary medicine. I guess to put it another way, counties and cities in the state of Missouri will not be able to create laws which affect the running of veterinary practices.

One such law might be to ban declawing. And that is relevant because Alley Cat Allies, a well-known charity, is petitioning people and campaigning for this bill to be stopped in its tracks before it becomes law.

Why the law is bad

Why should they want to do this? It is because the city of St Louis and St Louis County have both enacted declawing bans.

The fear is that a state law preventing counties from creating laws as mentioned above may act retrospectively and undermine the declawing bans in St. Louis and St. Louis County.

This greatly concerns the administrators of Alley cat Allies. The charity wants citizens of Missouri to ask their Missouri state senator to vote NO to allow local governments' ability to ban the cruel, barbaric practice of cat declawing.

Clever way to stop a statewide ban?

This law may be a clever way to stop the creation of laws in Missouri to ban declawing. Why can't the Missouri legislature create a law which bans declawing across the entire state? That would be the ethical way to proceed.

Alley Cat Allies page

Alley Cat Allies have a page on their website which you can complete if you are American to send to the lawmakers of Missouri to ask them to not create this law as it undermines laws at a local level which ban declawing.

You can read Alley Cat Allies' page on this and complete their form by clicking on this link.

Declawing is horrible

Just a quick note on declawing in case you thought that it is okay to declaw your cat. Firstly, I would like to point you to a big page that I have just written on a Maine Coon cat website of mine in which I go into quite a lot of detail about why declawing is highly unacceptable.

The main reason why declawing is unacceptable is because vets in America swear an oath before they start practising to do no harm to their patients. Everything that a veterinarian does must be an attempt to improve the health and welfare of their patients.

Almost all declawing is for non-therapeutic purposes. It is the mutilation of a cat's paws. It is not nail trimming. It is an amputation. It causes lots of pain. It can cripple a cat. There are many botched surgeries. I could go on for hours about this. But it is harming a cat.

Above all, it is cruel and an abuse of domestic cats. It is an aberration in worldwide veterinary practice. The American veterinarians should never have invented the procedure. But America is massively out of step with the rest of the world in doing this.

Please click on the link above to read that page that I mention. And then when you feel sure, go to the Alley cat Allies page and write that letter to the Missouri politicians if you live in Missouri.