Before the Tacoma City Council voted to ban cat declawing except when medically necessary, a leader said the time was right to "choose cats, not couches."
The procedure can be medically necessary in certain cases, like when a cat has a cancerous tumor or has severely injured a paw. But Tacoma’s ban won’t interfere with surgeries like that, the council’s release said.
I read that to mean "for feline medical reasons." If kitty has some injury or illness of the paw that necessitates amputation, that's a valid reason. To prevent scratching up the furniture is not.
My mother-in-law's cat almost got either declawed or euthanised when he started having epileptic seizures and attacking her face. It wasn't intentional, he was an affectionate and gentle cat when he wasn't seizing. Luckily, he seemed to grow out of it.