If abortion is murder…pregnant Texas woman fights HOV lane ticket

Brandy Bottone of Plano, Texas, was driving in the high-occupancy vehicle lane on US Highway 75 South when she was hauled over by a police officer; to drive in an HOV lane, there must be more than one passenger in the vehicle, he stated.

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Bottone claimed she didn’t see a problem because she was 34 weeks pregnant. When the officer inquired about the other car passenger, she pointed to her stomach and said, “My baby girl is right here. She is a person.” According to Bottone, the officer stated that both people needed to be “outside of the body.”

Bottone clearly brought out the double standard in Texas law: is her unborn child a live person or not? According to the Dallas Morning News, she stated, “One officer kind of brushed me off when I mentioned this is a living child, according to everything that’s going on with the overturning of Roe v. Wade.” 

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“I don’t know why you’re not seeing that,” she informed the officer. Her explanation did not sit well with the police, who issued her a $215 fine.

The event comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s contentious decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last month. Abortions are banned in Texas. The state’s lawmakers intend to complicate reproductive care even more by restricting abortion pills from being mailed to women in Texas and prohibiting travel for out-of-state operations.

According to the New York Times, Texas had “the most restrictive abortion law in the nation,” even before the landmark Supreme Court ruling. The Texas Supreme Court authorised the implementation of a six-week abortion ban in March.

Also read: Will red states arrest women who travel for abortions? Joe Biden thinks so

With a few exceptions, Texas is one of nine states that have declared abortion illegal. Yesterday, Indiana and Louisiana tightened abortion regulations, making it more difficult for women to obtain the surgery.

“I will be fighting it,” Bottone said to the Dallas Morning News. Her court date, which also happens to be her due date, is July 20.