Sandi,
I applaud you for your efforts to help feral cats. Good on you!
Just some of my (long!) thoughts on the matter: While both are surgeries that involve everything that is involved with surgery (though declawing is a more delicate and risky surgery than spaying or neutering), there are definite reasons for me why declawing should be illegal in this country (as it is in many other advanced civilizations) while neutering and spaying should be promoted and encouraged. (Also, I've observed many post-surgery cats who have been neutered/spayed--mine as well as strays and shelter cat---as well as few who have been declawed---shelter cats who have been returned soon post-declawing because of litter-box issues---and the pain the spayed/neutered cats appeared to be in, almost immediately post-op, did not come close to the pain in the eyes of the post-op declawed cats).
1) declawing may cause unfavorable behavioral changes (such as bite aggression or litter-box aversion---I adopted a declawed cat once who had the latter problem, but only with #1. The only solution was to set aside as special litter box for her with folded towels that I washed after each use ) that may result in a cat being rejected by their owner, while neutering of a male cat eliminates the unfavorable (and, IMO, unlivable!) behavior of male territorial marking that results in male cats being unable to find a home and thus being euthanized.
2) while a cat's natural instinct to scratch (actually marking its territory with the scent glands on the underside of its paws) can be diverted from furniture and doorways with a judicious use of human-supplied substitutions of the right height and texture (it may take some effort to find the right combo, but aren't cats worth it?), a male cat's natural instinct to mark its territory by spraying cannot.
3) declawing can lead to chronic health and physical problems, such as intermittant lameness (I think Mandy, my declawed cat, had problems with that as well). Spaying and neutering can prevent or reduce health issues such as complications of pregnancies, reduces risks of mammary tumors, prevents uterine infections and cancers of the ovaries and uterus. Also, unneutered males who go outside (and who can keep an unneutered male in the house?!) are at a much higher risk of being exposed to diseases and suffering serious injury as they roam much more and get in fights with other males over territory and females. (My $(@% neighbors moved in with 3 cats: one spayed female and two unneutered males. They never let the males in the house, and the cats sprayed constantly. I had befriended one of them, and after he came to me for the third time after a fight--this one that left him badly torn up, bleeding and limping, I finally had enough and took him to my vet to get fixed up, as well as 'fixed'!)
4) IMO, declawing is done solely for the benefit of the human, with no benefit to the cat (granted, one could say that the cat finding a home is a benefit, but if declawing were not the norm, and people were more proactive about finding other solutions, this would not be an issue. And interestingly enough, though the argument that 'declawing may help a cat who would otherwise be euthanized find a home' may seem quite convincing, according to this site
http://www.sniksnak.com/cathealth/declaw.html 70% of cats turned in to shelters because of behavioral issues are declawed.).
My cats' tails are sometimes an annoyance to me, but I wouldn't consider having them amputated (Bobsie's is already naturally short!).
5) litters upon litters of unwanted cats who are subsequently euthanized (or, if THEY happen to get homes, displace unwanted cats already in the shelters who are then euthanized) is a much more serious problem than some potentially shredded furniture, IMO. (Note: I grew up with shredded furniture, because we never had scratching posts, but we loved our cats more than the furniture). Since a female cat can go into heat as often as every 2-3 weeks (and can howl and scream like a banshee in search of a male, who is attracted and sprays the outside of the house with what is I'm sure a very seductive odor to cats, but not to people) and during that time is VERY motivated to find a mate, escape and subsequent impregnation are quite possible.
(6) a somewhat less serious reason : at the shelter, about 98% of the time, I can tell a declawed cat just by looking (from a distance). Their paws just aren't quite the full, beautiful, natural paws nature gave them. And some of them frankly look deformed or mutilated. The majority of those cats will not allow me to touch their paws (I have performed the comparison on dozens of them), while I'm fully able to touch and manipulate the paws of the vast majority of the clawed cats. (That suggests to me either some residual discomfort 'odd feeling' in the paws or some enduring negative association with the procedure. At the same time, spayed cats have no problem allowing me to rub their bellies---at least no more than the statistical existence of cats who will vs will not let their bellies be rubbed).
I volunteer at a local shelter, and what bothers me most of all--what both saddens and angers me--is that people automatically think of declawing as a first thing to do, without even giving the cat a chance to see if a less drastic solution would work with that particular cat. They are not willing to put in a bit of effort, use their human ingenuity, or give the cat some time to see if they could work with the cat in another way. It's some sort of automatic association that many people have ( cats = declawing).
Currently, my cat Pete would claw anything he could, including my pants while I am wearing them, but he is also very happy with the numerous cat scratching surfaces I have provided (and which I had to add to to keep him in line!). I also have perfected my claw-trimming technique to be as short as possible on him (and I swear, right after a close trim, he gets a really annoyed look on his face when he goes to one of his favorite cat trees and tries to rip it to shreds, LOL!). He would have certainly been declawed by someone with less patience and less concern for his 'catness'. And since he's already a bit of a biter (more of a nibbler), I suspect he could have easily developed bite agression that would have led to his return to the shelter and possible euthanasia (I'm, of course, speculating, but speculation is necessary since one never knows how a cat will change post-declawing).
Rascal, on the other hand, has never shown any interest in scratching anything but a couple of my tall vertical scratching posts. If he had been adopted by a 'pro-declawing' person, he would have automatically, unthinkingly undergone a completely unnecessary amputation, removing bones, tendons and ligaments as well as claws.
