§ 11.4 a.m.
§ Mr. Christopher Price (Lewisham, West)With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I beg leave to present a petition appertaining to electro-convulsive therapy and psychosurgery which has been signed by 15,960 of my constituents and others in the Greater London area. I shall read the petition.
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.The Humble Petition of we the undersigned Sheweththat both electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) and psycho-surgery are largely empirical procedures; that ECT treats the symptom and not the cause and that it has been shown to cause cumulative and irreversible brain damage and to produce memory loss; that psycho-surgery also causes irreversible damage to the brain; and that the World Health Organisation has stated that psycho-surgical interventions are ethically doubtful. Wherefore your Petitioners humbly pray that this Honourable House will forbid the use of ECT and psychosurgery in the National Health Service and your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.I beg leave to present the petition.To lie upon the Table.