A pregnant Texas lady who was fined for using an HOV lane alone claimed that since Roe v. Wade had been reversed by the Supreme Court, her fetus should have been considered a passenger and she should not have received the ticket.
Brandy Bottone was stopped recently by a sheriff’s deputy at an HOV lane checkpoint while travelling down Central Expressway in Dallas to ensure that there were the required two occupants per car.
Last month, she recalled to The Washington Post that the sheriff questioned, “Is it just you or is someone else travelling with you,” after looking around the car.
“I said, ‘Oh, there’s two of us,’” Bottone tells reporters. “And he said, ‘Where?’”
Bottone—who was 34 weeks pregnant—indicated her tummy. She insisted that her “baby girl” was present in the car with her.
In reaction to that, Bottone claimed that one of the deputies she encountered on the Hov Lane on June 29 informed her that there must be “two bodies outside of the body.”
The Texas Transportation Code does not acknowledge a fetus as a person, despite the state’s penal code doing so.
Bottone was given a $215 fine for driving alone in the two-or-more occupant lane; she told the local media that she would be contesting the ticket in court this month.
“One officer kind of brushed me off when I mentioned this is a living child, according to everything that’s going on with the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”
“‘So I don’t know why you’re not seeing that,’ I said. I will be fighting it,” Bottone told the Dallas Morning News, recalling the Hov Lane incident.
The announcement comes as the nation deals with the effects of the Supreme Court’s judgment from more than two weeks ago.
In response to mounting pressure from activists, President Biden made a moving speech on Friday in which he announced several initiatives to support abortion rights.
Pro-choicers generally supported Biden’s decision to sign the executive order, but many believed it would have little impact on women living in areas where abortion is illegal.
