Ireland has enacted a ban on the use of electroshock treatment, also known as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), for minors under the age of 18, a move that the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) International hails as a significant human rights advance. The ban, included in the Mental Health Act enacted in May 2026, safeguards young people from a procedure that delivers up to 460 volts of electricity through the brain, which can cause severe memory loss, cognitive impairment, and brain damage.
The CCHR, a mental health industry watchdog, has long campaigned against the use of ECT on minors. The organization helped secure the first law banning ECT on children under 12 in California in 1976, followed by a ban on those under 16 in Texas in 1993. In Western Australia, CCHR supported a ban on ECT for children 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 limit to 17. However, she emphasized that the ban should be extended to all ages, echoing calls from thousands who urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban ECT outright under its Final Rule in 2018. CCHR remains committed to achieving a complete ban.
The Human Rights Institute in Ireland described the adoption of the Mental Health Act as one of the country's most significant developments in advancing human rights, noting that it reconsiders the relationship between health, human dignity, and state responsibilities. The Irish Mental Health Commission highlighted that the most significant right affected by the legislation is the right to liberty and personal security.
In the United States, the newly formed Stop ECT Coalition—a consortium of health and human rights organizations representing hundreds of thousands of individuals—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 reclassified ECT devices as moderate risk (Class II) without such trials. The Coalition emphasizes that this incorrect classification has 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, a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, has extensively reviewed ECT studies. He notes that early proponents argued ECT works by reducing intelligence or erasing traumatic memories, a theory described as "brain-damaging therapeutics." Read and colleagues have published a review of over a hundred studies showing that the effects of ECT on the brain are very similar to those of 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," seeing little reason to use it. Psychiatrist Dr. Niall McLaren stated unequivocally, "No psychiatrist needs to use ECT." A mental health strategy plan drafted by the World Health Organization's Department of Mental Health and Substance Use warned of ECT's health risks, including brain damage, cardiovascular complications, memory impairment, and even death, and recommended that ECT be banned for children and that 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 harmful practices such as deep sleep treatment, which combines ECT with a psychotropic drug-induced coma.
