Brandy Bottone, 32, was stopped at a Central Expressway sheriff’s checkpoint on June 29, NBC-Dallas Fort Worth reported. The checkpoint was to target drivers who violate a law requiring at least one passenger to be in the car when using the freeway’s carpool lane, also called the high-occupancy vehicle lane or HOV lane.
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At the time she was arrested by police, Bottone was 34 weeks pregnant. Story continues below ad According to NBC, when the officer asked Bottone where the second passenger was, she pointed to her stomach and said, “Right here.” “I pointed to my stomach and said, ‘My baby girl is here. He’s a person,” Bottone told The Dallas Morning News. Brandy Bottone of Plano never expected her challenge of an HOV ticket to go viral. She argues that her unborn child counts as a passenger in light of recent reproductive rights events. It remains politically neutral. “If there’s a pro-women charge, that’s my stance.” @wfaa @10 pic.twitter.com/M7goosEfEa — Jobin Panicker (@jobinpnews) July 11, 2022 Bottone told the officer that because of the recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, her fetus was now recognized in the US as a living person. Trending Stories
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The officer reportedly disagreed and told Bottone that the HOV lane rule required “two people outside the body” to be in the car. Story continues below ad Although the Texas criminal code recognizes a fetus as a person, the state’s transportation code does not. Bottone, a resident of Plano, Texas, then surrendered to another officer who issued her a US$215 (approximately CDN$280) ticket. The officer reportedly told Bottone that the report would likely be dismissed if he fought it in court.
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Although Bottone plans to fight the ticket, she told the Dallas Morning News that she was disappointed because she believed the ticket was written to “cause inconvenience.” “This makes my blood boil. How could that be fair? Under the new law, that’s a life,” he told the report. “I know that might fall on deaf ears, but as a woman, that was shocking.” The sheriff’s department has not publicly commented on Bottone’s claim that her unborn baby qualifies as a vehicle passenger. Bottone’s court date is July 20, around the same time as her baby’s expected due date. The US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was announced on June 24. The decision overturned the landmark decision Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion for more than 50 years in the US Story continues below ad In a 5-4 decision, the high court upheld a Mississippi law that would have banned most abortions after the 15th week, while also overturning legal precedent set in 1973 and the 1992 decision that affirmed it, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The question of whether abortions are legal will now be left up to individual states, which could lead to wide disparities in access across the U.S. — With files from Sean Boynton of Global News 2:17 Biden signs executive order to protect abortion rights in US Previous Video Next Video © 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
