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Is the Angst of Declawing Contributing to Veterinarian Suicide?

Story published on May 21, 2021

How can we improve mental well-being in the veterinary profession, especially related to moral distress and ethical trauma?

Ban and end declawing.

As you will see below, declawing causes moral distress and negatively affects the mental health and well-being of many veterinary professionals.

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AAHA Veterinarians Fight to Stop The Anti-Declawing Bills. AAHA.org Puts Profits Over The Welfare of Cats

Here are some examples of how the vets with AAHA Accredited Animal Hospital's fight to stop the anti-declawing bills and ordinances. Dr Lynn McEwan of Palmdale veterinary hospital, an AAHA accredited animal hospital, submitted this letter of opposition to the California bill to ban declawing in 2018. In August 2021, another AAHA veterinarian, Dr Peter Pelissier testified to the Sheridan, WY City Council and Mayor about why he opposes the declaw ban amendment to the animal cruelty/abuse ordinance. Here's his full testimony.  He was not truthful with some of his information. This declaw ban amendment was stopped by a 5-2...

MVMA Used Misleading Testimony to Influence 7 GOP Legislators Who Stopped Minnesota’s Declawing Bill

7 GOP Legislators are Duped by MVMA.org's Declawing Deception And Kill The MN Anti-Declaw Bill, Ensuring Many Innocent and Healthy Cats in Minnesota Will Be Barbarically Mutilated and Suffer for Life. In 2025, MVMA spokesman Dr Trevor Ames assured lawmakers that “very few veterinary practices offer elective declawing as a service currently.” In 2026, MVMA's spokesman, Dr Rob Memmem, co-owner of Gehrman Animal Hospital, reinforced that narrative in a March 2026 hearing, telling legislators there had been “a huge increase in the number of our veterinarians no longer performing the procedure over the last 15 or so years,” that “currently...

National Veterinary Associates (NVA) Calls Declawing Inhumane and Prohibits It In Their 1500 Vet Clinics in The U.S And Canada

In 2019, a spokesman for the billionaire Reimann family—whose ancestors profited under the Nazi regime—said, "The whole truth must be put on the table." Here’s a truth still hidden: The Reimanns built part of their immense fortune on human suffering, and today, they allow cat suffering to continue. Through their firm JAB Holding Co., they own NVA, the largest U.S. network of vet hospitals—over 1,400 clinics—many of which still perform declawing, a cruel amputation procedure their own Medical Board has called "inhumane." The cruelty didn’t stop with history. It just changed form.

Unnecessary and Inhumane: Majority of Ohio Vet Clinics Still Perform Declawing Despite Clear Evidence of Harm

Ohio — A statewide investigative declawing survey of 100 randomly selected veterinary clinics reveals a deeply troubling picture of the welfare of cats in Ohio, where this inhumane, mutilating, and cruel amputation procedure remains routine in many communities. Declawing is the amputation of the last bone of every cat’s toe and it has been condemned by leading veterinary organizations and animal welfare organizations and outlawed in six U.S. states, restricted in dozens of cities, banned in eight of nine Canadian provinces, and prohibited in more than 40 countries. Decades of studies link the procedure to lifelong chronic pain, arthritis, mobility...

AVMA’s Credibility in Crisis: Leaders With Financial Ties to Declawing Shape Policy, Prompting Calls to Rename It the “American Veterinary Money Association”

Story published on October 21, 2025.  (Petition to the AVMA. AVMA Petition Update January 2026.   In a sharp January 2026 Letter to the Editor in the Journal of Small Animal Practice, experts from the World Small Animal Veterinary Association Pain Committee condemn the American Veterinary Medical Association’s (AVMA) House of Delegates for refusing to […]