Pregnant Woman Says Her Fetus Is Second Passenger After Getting Fined For Driving In Carpool Lane

Recently, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Americans no longer have a constitutional right to abortion. This rule created quite a stir not only in the USA but around the world.

Women have been protesting against this rule. One among them is Brandy Bottone who was pulled over by police for driving alone in the carpool lane. The woman from Texas is pregnant and when she was pulled over she told the officer that her unborn baby should count as a second passenger, citing the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade.

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The 32-year-old was stopped at a Central Expressway sheriff¡¯s checkpoint on June 29. The checkpoint was to target drivers breaking a law that requires at least one passenger to be in the car when using the highway¡¯s carpool lane, also called a high-occupancy vehicle or HOV lane.

When the woman was 34 weeks pregnant when she was pulled over by the cops.

According to NBC, when the officer asked Brandy where the second passenger was, she pointed to her stomach and said, ¡°Right here.¡± ¡°An officer peeked in and asked, ¡®Is there anybody else in the car?¡¯¡± Brandy told the Dallas Morning News. ¡°I pointed to my stomach and said, ¡®My baby girl is right here. She is a person.¡¯"

She told the officer that because of the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, her fetus was now recognized in the U.S. as a living person. The officer reportedly disagreed and told Brandy the HOV lane rule required ¡°two people outside of the body¡± be in the car.

Unsplash/Representational image

Even though the Texas penal code recognizes a fetus as a person, the state¡¯s transportation code does not. The woman was then passed along to another officer who gave her a US$215 ticket (about CDN$280). The officer reportedly told Brandy the citation will most likely be dropped if she fights it in court.

Even though she wanted to fight the ticket, this entire episode frustrated her, as she believed the ticket was written to ¡°cause inconvenience.¡± ¡°This has my blood boiling. How could this be fair? According to the new law, this is a life,¡± she said to the outlet. ¡°I know this may fall on deaf ears, but as a woman, this was shocking.¡±

The sheriff¡¯s department has not publicly commented on Brandy's claim that her unborn baby qualifies as a vehicular passenger.

Dallas News

The pregnant woman's court date is July 20. This is around the same time as her due date. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was announced on June 24.

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