Jacobin: “For years, Allyson Ho has received payments from the Alliance Defending Freedom. When the right-wing advocacy group argued a case in her husband’s court, Judge James Ho cast a decisive vote to cut off remote access to the abortion pill mifepristone.
Judge James Ho, who was nominated in 2017 by President Donald Trump, wrote his own opinion, agreeing with the majority in part but going even further to argue that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) approval of mifepristone in 2000 should be invalidated, removing it from the market — as the lower court had concluded.
James Ho did not recuse himself from the case even though his wife, Allyson Ho, has regularly participated in events with and accepted speaking fees from the Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian legal group whose lawyers argued the mifepristone case before his court, according to the judge’s financial disclosures.
The opinion from James Ho quickly made headlines because he argued that doctors “experience an aesthetic injury” when their patients have abortions, adding: “Unborn babies are a source of profound joy for those who view them.”
Experts say the judge’s participation in the mifepristone case raises the appearance of impropriety, even if he was not technically required to recuse under existing federal ethics laws.”