A pregnant woman said her unborn baby should count as a second passenger in her vehicle after she received a ticket, citing the state of Texas' penal code in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
NBC-Dallas Fort Worth reported that Brandy Bottone was pulled over on June 29 after she drove in a high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane. The 32-year-old was stopped by the Dallas County Sheriff's Department, which was looking for drivers that were violating the HOV lane rules.
The HOV lane requires drivers to have at least one passenger in their vehicles when they use the lane. When a sheriff's deputy told the Plano native about the rule, she said that she did, in fact, have a second occupant in her car and that is her unborn baby.
Officer said rule applies to two people outside of the body
According to the Dallas Morning News, which first reported the story, Bottone pointed to her stomach when talking to the officer and said that her baby girl is right here and she is a person. The officer responded to Bottone, saying that the rule applies to "two people outside of the body."
Bottone, who was 34 weeks pregnant at the time of the violation, told the officers that with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, her unborn baby now was recognized as a living person. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned on June 24 Roe v. Wade.
Bottone then said that she is not trying to throw a political mix here, but with everything going on, this counts as a baby. She added that the officer told her he did not want to deal with this and insisted that the law for HOV lanes required there to be "two persons outside of the body."
Bottone plans to fight ticket with argument that her fetus is a person
Although the Texas penal code recognizes a fetus as a person, it appears that there is no language in the state Transportation Department's code that recognizes a fetus as a person or a passenger for that matter, according to the New York Post.
Representatives for the state Transportation Department and sheriff's department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Deputies have told Bottone that if she fought her ticket, it would likely be dismissed. She plans to fight the $215 ticket by arguing that her in-utero baby should count as another occupant of her car.
Bottone said this has her blood boiling as according to the new law, this is a life. She knows this may fall on deaf ears, but as a woman, this was shocking. She added that this was a Dallas County Sheriff Department's operation.
Representative Raul Reyna told Bottone that it is not technically a checkpoint because not every driver is stopped. The only vehicles that are stopped in the HOV lane are ones where officers can visually see traveling with only one occupant.
