Marisa Graham Credit: Clarin Sociedad The deans of five Argentine law schools have protested the appointment of a supporter of legalised abortion as Argentina’s Ombudsman for the Rights of Girls, Boys and Adolescents since “it’s a clear violation of the federal juridical order”.
On June 26, the Argentine House of Representatives confirmed Marisa Graham, a well-known abortion advocate in Argentina, to lead the nation’s Ombudsman’s Office for Boys, Girls and Adolescents.
Graham’s appointment now awaits confirmation by Argentina’s senate.
The signatories to a letter of objection are the deans of the law schools of the Argentina Catholic University, the Catholic University of La Plata, the St Thomas Aquinas University of the North, the University del Salvador, and Fasta University.
Defence
Graham’s “public and manifest advocacy in support of the legalisation of abortion is discriminatory with respect to countless people who would be unprotected, helpless and deprived of the defence of their most elementary rights,” the deans said.
These rights are contained in the articles of the National Constitution, the American Convention on Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Civil and Commercial Code.
The regulations recognise “that people’s lives begin with conception and from that moment they are already children up to 18 years of age; that all children have the intrinsic right to life from conception and that their survival and development are to be guaranteed from that moment to the maximum extent possible, by the State and without any discrimination”, they said.