On December 23, Canadians got a Christmas present from the courts.

A Manitoba trial judge decided that the Charter of Rights gives people a right to a free abortion, courtesy of the taxpayer.

Even if you've actually read the Charter, you may not recall exactly where it lists your right to a free abortion.

That's because it doesn't.

The closest it gets is section 7: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice." Somehow this guarantees a free pregnancy termination, at least in the mind of Queen's Bench Associate Chief Justice Jeffrey Oliphant.

He found it a "grotesque violation" that abortion customers should have to pay the local Morgentaler franchise $375 to get faster service than they could from their local hospital.

We'll leave aside whether the Charter's "right to life" applies to life in the womb. This case wasn't about abortion, it was about free abortion.

By what tortuous rationalization the judge reached his conclusion hardly matters.

What interests me is that in every relevant opinion poll I've seen for the last eight years, the vast majority of citizens oppose forcing taxpayers to pay for abortion.

The most recent poll, performed by Environics last fall, found that only 26% of Canadians agreed with the judge.

In addition, he appears to have ignored the "Auton" decision in November, in which the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that provincial governments are free to decide which medical procedures require public funding.

But apparently it doesn't matter what the duly elected government of Manitoba thinks, or the Canadian public, or even the Supreme Court. All that counts, apparently, is how strongly Judge Oliphant feels about providing abortions free of charge.

Who knows why? Maybe he once had to pay for an abortion himself. Maybe he's a doctrinaire feminist. Maybe his wife is.

All we know is that Manitobans must now either pay for all abortions, or waste one or two million more public dollars appealing this bizarre decision in hopes the higher courts have more respect for the rights of elected governments.

Questions of state expenditure are supposed to be political, not legal. Someone has to decide that there's enough money to pay for this, but not that--for some things, but not everything.

That's why we elect governments. If they make the wrong decisions, we choose new politicians. Manitobans did not choose Jeffrey Oliphant, not can they replace him. He was anointed for life by some forgotten cabinet minister in Ottawa.
Of course, Manitoba does have another option. Rather than appeal, the government could pass a law opting out of this silly decision--something it is invited to do under section 33 of the Charter of Rights.

And if it lacks the courage to do so on its own authority, it could first put the question to Manitobans in a referendum in conjunction with the next election: "Do you agree with Judge Jeffrey Oliphant's opinion that Manitoba taxpayers should pay for all abortions, whether medically required or not?"

I suspect the public's answer would be such a stinging rebuke to the courts that Manitobans would never be burdened again with such a ridiculous judgment.

Link Byfield is chairman of the Edmonton-based Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy.