It has been made illegal in NY State to declaw a cat. Many years ago, we had a cat who was maybe 6 or 7 years old, and when we had a baby, we had the cat declawed, because we were worried he would scratch the baby. He was absolutely fine, acted exactly the same after he was declawed. It did not seem to harm him at all, and he lived to a ripe old cat age, around 18 or 19. Much later, a friend's aggressive cat did badly scratch my daughter--she was a school-age child at the time--right near her eye, which was quite scary. So I am happy with the decision to declaw, which we also did with two subsequent cats, both of whom showed no ill effects and have lived to ripe old ages--but now you can't.