01/09/2025
The best news!!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
It is now illegal to declaw a cat in Massachusetts, unless medically necessary. Thank you Governor Maura Healey for signing this important bill into law, and your commitment to animals in the Commonwealth. S. 2552: An Act prohibiting inhumane feline declawing prohibits the declawing, onychectomy, dactylectomy, or phalangectomy of a cat. Declawing involves the removal of the claw and the first bone of the toe. The operation is usually performed on the front feet, and is in fact an amputation comparable to the removal of all ten human fingertips at the first knuckle. Thank you to sponsor, Senator Mark Montigny, and Joint Committee Chairs State Representative Tackey Chan and Senator John J. Cronin for your support and determination in getting this legislation to the Governor's desk.
We also want to thank Senate President Karen E. Spilka, Speaker Ron Mariano, Senate Ways and Means Chair Senator Michael Rodrigues, and House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz for your leadership this session. The House and Senate both showed that animals, wild and domestic, are important to Massachusetts, with the passage of 5 animal protection bills.
Interested in passing this ban in your state? Contact The Paw Project, who work on this issue across the country!
Learn more about this new law and why cats need their claws: https://www.mspca.org/animal_protection/an-act-prohibiting-inhumane-feline-declawing/