A pregnant woman who was pulled up for driving solo in a carpool lane said the fetus should count as a passenger. Brandy Bottone, 32 years old and 34 weeks pregnant, has vowed to go to court after she was pulled over in Dallas, Texas in June and handed a penalty by a police officer last month, an AFP report reads.
Bottone did not dispute the fact that she was driving in a lane that was meant for vehicles with two or more people. When the police officer asked her if there was somebody else in the car, she pointed to her belly and said right here.
When the officer said that being pregnant does not count and that the person should be outside her body, she argued that her unborn child was a person in the eyes of the law, as the United States Supreme Court had days earlier reversed decades-standing federal law guaranteeing women access to abortion.
The officer told Bottone that if she contested the ticket it would be dismissed. A new Texas law had banned almost all abortions after six weeks even before Roe v. Wade was reversed.
