Soft paws is a lot better for desperate people rather than declawing. It's still widely practiced in US. Rather than being against it completely better let them have an option than the worst case
There is actually not too big of a difference between declawing and soft paws. But yes, it is some matter of how practiced it is. Here in Sweden we have laws against these kinds of things and therefore we have another way of looking at it. For the cat's sake, there shouldn't be a matter of declawing or soft paws, just teach the cat where to scratch (first of all buy furniture with places to scratch for them) and learn how to trim their claws.