Cats prowl, whether indoors or outdoors. There's probably less of a chance of getting squashed by a car, eaten by another animal, catch a disease, eat poison or get caught in some sort of trap if the animal's kept inside. If not allowed out, it might not have as much fun.

As for de-clawing vs spaying, spaying is a very invasive procedure requiring complete anesthetization. We do it to prevent having to have kittens we have to find homes for or put to sleep. De-clawing isn't that invasive, but having accidentally "de-clawed" on of my digits, I wouldn't want to go through having all of them done. I've never had any internal surgery, so I wouldn't know how painful that is. We de-claw cats to save our furniture and wooden bits of our houses. My guess is the cats are probably not fond of either procedure. One procedure is not more cruel than the other. The difference between the two is SOLELY whether we perceive the benefits are worth the pain to the animals. It's going to vary from person to person, and as we've seen time and time again, when you tell somebody else what their opinion should be - what they should think is important, they get honked off. You ain't in their shoes.

Flame bait!