A pregnant woman from Plano, Texas, ticketed for driving alone in the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane says her unborn baby counted as a passenger.
Brandy Bottone was driving on the Central Expressway when she was pulled over at a sheriff’s checkpoint used to enforce the rule against using the HOV lane without carrying any passengers, NBC-DFW reported Friday.
The Texas Department of Transportation’s website says vehicles carrying two or more people are permitted to use the HOV lanes.
The vehicles allowed to use such lanes include passenger cars, pickup trucks, vans, buses, motorcycles, and emergency vehicles responding to calls.
“He starts peeking around. He’s like, ‘Is it just you?’ And I said, ‘No there’s two of us?’” Bottone recalled, adding, “And he said, ‘Well where’s the other person.’ And I went, ‘right here,’” she continued, gesturing toward her belly.
When the incident occurred last month, she was 34 weeks pregnant. However, the officer did not agree with her interpretation of the rule.
“And then I said, ‘Well (I’m) not trying to throw a political mix here, but with everything going on (with Roe v. Wade), this counts as a baby,’” she explained.
In June, the United States Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, holding in the Dobbs case that the Constitution does not provide a right to abortion. The decision returned the issue to the states, Breitbart News reported:
Roe was handed down in 1973 in a 7-2 decision, holding that the U.S. Constitution includes a constitutional right to abortion, despite the fact that abortion is not found in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution, and the nation went more than 180 years without ever noticing it existed. It has been one of the most divisive legal issues in American history.
Meanwhile, Bottone reportedly said of the incident, “I don’t think it’s right. One law says it’s one way, and another law says it’s another way.”
According to the NBC-DFW article, Bottone was given a $275 ticket but that she plans to fight it in the courtroom.
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