Judge James Ho Seeking To Replace SC Justice Thomas

On August 16, 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that, if upheld by the Supreme Court, would limit access to mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in a regimen to induce abortion, Elie Mystal reported in The Nation.

It was suggested that Ho's disregard for precedent, his apparent hostility to logic, and his strong disdain for women and pregnant individuals might actually elevate him to become the next associate justice of the Supreme Court (SC). I Photo: Federalist Society at UVA Law X

However, one of the judges, James Ho, sought to take even more extensive measures. In his concurring opinion, he argued for the revocation of the Food and Drug Administration's 2000 approval of the drug.

Ho asserted that the litigants, a group of doctors who opposed abortion but had neither used nor prescribed mifepristone and should not have had standing in the case, had the right to sue based on a newly contrived form of harm invented by Ho: "aesthetic injury."

Ho further stated, "Doctors take pleasure in working with their unborn patients and experience an aesthetic injury when they are aborted."

Mystal expressed his disbelief at such legal theories, which he considered both inane and insulting.

He suggested that, in a normal country, these theories would have derailed Ho's career as a serious legal scholar and relegated him to a career akin to that of Judge Jeanine, known for espousing eccentric legal theories while seemingly inebriated, designed to maintain viewers' attention until the next commercial break.

However, in the current political climate under a GOP regime, Mystal speculated that Ho's disregard for precedent, his apparent hostility to logic, and his strong disdain for women and pregnant individuals might actually elevate him to become the next associate justice of the Supreme Court (SC).

Since his appointment to the Fifth Circuit by Donald Trump in 2018, Ho has been actively campaigning to replace the oldest current Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas, who is also the justice most likely to retire during the next Republican presidential administration.

Ho, a favored figure within the Federalist Society, appears to have been groomed specifically for this purpose.

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