A Plano, Texas woman is looking to overturn a traffic citation she received for driving alone in the HOV lane because she contends that in light of Texas abortion law that apparently defines an unborn child as a person, the baby in her belly upped the passenger count in her car to two.
Running late to pick up her son on June 29, the 34-week pregnant mother was headed down U.S. Highway 75 South near Dallas when she hopped in the HOV lane and was quickly slapped with a $215 ticket by a Dallas County Sheriff’s Deputy because only one seat in the vehicle was occupied.
“This has my blood boiling,” Brandy Bottone told The Dallas Morning News. “How could this be fair? According to the new law, this is a life.”
“I was driving to pick up my son. I knew I couldn’t be a minute late, so I took the HOV [high-occupancy vehicle] lane. As I exited the HOV, there was a checkpoint at the end of the exit. I slammed on my brakes, and I was pulled over by police,” Bottone said.
“An officer peeked in and asked, ‘Is there anybody else in the car?’ she recalled. “I said, ‘Well, yes.’”
(Video Credit: NBCDFW)
When the officer inquired as to the location of the second person, she pointed her stomach and said, “My baby girl is right here. She is a person.”
“And then I said, ‘Well [I’m] not trying to throw a political mix here, but with everything going on [with the overturning of Roe v. Wade], this counts as a baby,’” she recollected in an interview with NBC-DFW.
Bottone said the officer who stopped her did not want to deal with the issue and apparently told her, “Ma’am, it means two persons outside the body,” and sent her on to the next officer who issued the ticket.
The second cop apparently told her “If you fight it, it will most likely get dropped.’
“But they still gave me a ticket,” she said “So my $215 ticket was written to cause inconvenience?
“I know this may fall on deaf ears, but as a woman, this was shocking,” Bottone added.
Dennis Prager: Supreme Court decision may force young women to confront sexual reality https://t.co/pGVRjdYNX0
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) June 28, 2022
A spokesperson for the pro-life organization Texas Alliance for Life believed the law is clearly on the side of the law enforcement official that wrote the ticket.
“While the penal code in Texas recognizes an unborn child as a person in our state, the Texas Transportation Code does not specify the same. And a child residing in a mother’s womb is not taking up an extra seat. And with only one occupant taking up a seat, the car did not meet the criteria needed to drive in that lane,” Amy O’Donnell said.
Backseat drivers on Twitter couldn’t even agree on what persons outside the womb counted as passengers for purposes of utilizing the HOV carpool lane.
Sorry but the carpool lane is used for two or more licensed drivers…
— Aaron Clark (@Clarkster669) July 9, 2022
My HS trigonometry teacher tried to pull this. I found it so absurd bc I’m pretty sure your fetus is not of legal driving age but maybe the rules on that will change too 🤷🏻♀️
— 🇺🇦🌻 🇺🇦 Lannies 🇺🇦🌻 🇺🇦 #SlavaUkraini (@lannies) July 9, 2022
Sorry but the carpool lane is used for two or more licensed drivers…
— Aaron Clark (@Clarkster669) July 9, 2022
Regardless, Bottone definitely plans to fight the ticket and is scheduled to appear in court on July 20, right around her due date.
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