"The operation involves essentially taking the ends of what we would call our fingers off. I had a personal experience of this. I had the end of one of my fingers crushed in an accident many, many years ago, and for years afterwards ... I got phantom pains in that finger. I'm a human being and I could look at my finger and say, 'That's a phantom pain. I know it's not real pain. It's annoying and distracting, but I can live with it.'
"... I think [if I had] eight of those going and I was a cat and I couldn't really understand what had happened to me, I suspect I would have not been happy about it.
"... Surgically, it's more than [just taking out the nail] because you have to take out the whole bit where the nail grows from. ... There's an ethical issue as well, I suspect, which is reflected in the codes of practice over here in Europe where declawing is illegal. ... It's regarded as being a mutilation of the animal."
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