Ireland has banned the use of electroshock treatment on minors under its Mental Health Law enacted in May, marking a significant human rights advance, according to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR). The law now safeguards those younger than 18 from the practice, also known as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which delivers up to 460 volts of electricity through the brain and can cause severe memory loss, cognitive impairment, and brain damage.
The ban comes after years of advocacy by CCHR, which helped obtain the first law prohibiting ECT use on minors under 12 in California in 1976, and later in Texas on minors under 16 in 1993. In Western Australia, CCHR contributed to banning the procedure on those aged 14 and younger in 2014, with criminal penalties for violators. Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, praised Irish officials for recognizing the need to prohibit ECT's use on minors, raising the age to 17. "However, like thousands who called for ECT to be banned in the U.S. under the FDA's Final Rule in 2018, the ban should be extended to all ages. CCHR is committed to achieving this," Eastgate said.
The Human Rights Institute in Ireland reported that the adoption of the Mental Health Act "can be regarded as one of the country's significant developments in the advancement of human rights and in the reconsideration of the relationship between health, human dignity, and the public responsibilities of the state." The Irish Mental Health Commission noted that "the most significant right potentially affected by this legislation is the right to liberty and personal security."
In the United States, the FDA has cleared ECT devices for those 13 and older for three limited conditions, but the procedure is broadly administered off-label—a practice CCHR wants to stop. The newly formed Stop ECT Coalition, comprising health and human rights organizations, is urging a review of how ECT devices remain on the market. ECT devices were "grandfathered" into FDA regulation in 1976 as a Class III high-risk device, bypassing modern standards requiring Premarket Approval (PMA) with clinical trials proving safety and efficacy. In 2018, the FDA reduced the classification to moderate risk (Class II) without such trials. The Coalition emphasizes: "This incorrect classification allowed ECT devices to be used on children as young as five, pregnant women, seniors, veterans, and other vulnerable persons…Involuntary application—still occurring in some U.S. facilities—has been condemned by the United Nations and World Health Organization as a human-rights abuse."
Dr. John Read, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, has extensively reviewed ECT studies and notes that several leading proponents argued ECT works because it reduces intelligence or intellectual functioning, or erases traumatic memories—a concept called "brain-damaging therapeutics." He and colleagues have published a review demonstrating that the effects of ECT on the brain are similar to a closed-brain injury or traumatic brain injury. Robert Rubinstein, a former psychiatry professor at the University of California, San Francisco, compared ECT to "kicking a Swiss watch," while psychiatrist Dr. Niall McLaren stated unequivocally: "No psychiatrist needs to use ECT." A World Health Organization mental health strategy plan warns of ECT's health risks, including brain damage, cardiovascular complications, memory impairment, and even death, and states that ECT should be banned for children and non-consenting use may constitute torture.
CCHR, established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szasz, has helped obtain hundreds of laws worldwide that increase informed consent rights and prohibit deep sleep treatment—a combination of ECT and a psychotropic drug-induced coma. The organization continues to push for a complete ban on ECT, emphasizing that Ireland's action, while positive, is only a step toward full prohibition.
