Rachel Fieldhouse
Legal

Pregnant woman argues unborn baby counts as a passenger under new abortion laws

A pregnant US woman has argued her unborn baby should count as a second passenger in her car in the wake of Roe v Wade being overturned, after she was fined for driving in a lane that requires at least two people in the car.

Brandy Bottone of Plano, Texas, was pulled over on June 29 after driving in a high-occupancy (HOV) lane by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department looking for drivers violating HOV lane rules, as reported by NBC-Dallas Fort Worth.

HOV lanes, also known as carpool and T2 lanes, require drivers to have at least one passenger in their car when they use the lane.

When an officer told Bottone about the rule and asked whether she had any passengers with her, she said she did.

“I pointed to my stomach and said, ‘My baby girl is right here. She is a person’,” the 32-year-old told The Dallas Morning News.

The officer argued that the rule applies to “two people outside the body”, to which Bottone responded that, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, her unborn child is considered as a living person.

“And then I said, ‘Well [I’m] not trying to throw a political mix here, but with everything going on, this counts as a baby’,” Bottone recounted.

She said the officer told her he didn’t “want to deal with this”, insisting the law for HOV lanes required “two persons outside of the body” to be in the vehicle.

While the penal code in Texas recognises a foetus as a person, there appears to be no language in the state Transportation Department’s code that recognises a foetus in the same way.

Though deputies told Bottone that her case would likely be dismissed if she fought it, she still plans to fight the $215 ticket, arguing that her in-utero baby should count as another occupant.

“This has my blood boiling. How could this be fair? According to the new law, this is a life,” she told The Morning News.

“I know this may fall on deaf ears, but as a woman, this was shocking.”

Image: NBC DFW

Tags:
Legal, US, Abortion, Roe v. Wade, Texas, Pregnant Woman