Texas GOP Representative Vows to Introduce Bill to Clarify Fetuses are People After Pregnant Woman Goes Viral for Getting Ticketed in HOV Lane
A pregnant woman in Texas went viral this week with her story about fighting a traffic ticket for driving in the carpool lane with a unique argument that her unborn baby counted as a passenger, and now a legislator is vowing to codify her argument into the state’s official transportation code.
Brandy Bottone of Plano, Texas was driving to pick up her son and took the High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane because she was worried about running late, and was pulled over at a Dallas County Sheriff’s checkpoint at the highway exit.
That led to a memorable conversation, as Bottone shared with the Dallas Morning News. When an officer asked her if there was anybody else in the car, Bottone answered, “yes,” and the officer asked “where?”
Bottone pointed to her stomach and said, “My baby girl is right here. She is a person.” The officer was unconvinced, telling her it had to be “two people outside the body.”
She then argued that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, meant that her unborn child was a separate living person, and therefore qualified as a second person in the car to allow her to use the HOV lane. Another officer told her if she fought the ticket it would “most likely get dropped,” but still wrote her the $215 citation.
The ticket had her “blood boiling,” she told the Morning News. “How could this be fair? According to the new law, this is a life. I know this may fall on deaf ears, but as a woman, this was shocking.”
Pamela Brown interviewed Bottone about her ticket on Sunday’s episode of CNN Newsroom, and the soon-to-be mother-of-two explained that she wasn’t necessarily trying to take a political stance on the contentious topic of abortion as pro-life or pro-choice, but that she would “love to be a part of” a “pro-woman movement,” and “it just didn’t make sense to me why two different laws were not speaking the correct way.”
Currently, the Texas Penal Code recognizes an unborn child as a person, but the text of the Texas Transportation Code does not. That might soon change, if Texas State Rep. Brian Harrison, a Republican who represents a suburban district south of Dallas, gets his way.
Saturday evening, Harrison tweeted a link to an article about Bottone’s traffic ticket and promised to introduce a bill to “clarify” the state statutes. “Unborn babies are persons (meaning they’re also passengers), and should be treated accordingly under Texas laws,” wrote Harrison.
Unborn babies are persons (meaning they’re also passengers), and should be treated accordingly under Texas laws. Will introduce legislation to clarify this. Brandy, keep fighting that ticket! #txlege https://t.co/ibs7cZl4vd
— Brian Harrison (@brianeharrison) July 10, 2022
Mediaite reached out to Harrison for comment, but did not receive a reply.
Bottone is due in court for a hearing on her ticket on July 20. Her daughter is due on Aug. 3. She told the Washington Post that she was frustrated that the laws were “confusing” and “don’t speak the same language,” and hoped that her story might encourage better consistency.
“It wasn’t because of Roe v. Wade that I hopped in the HOV lane,” said Bottone. “I just thought of it as me and another person.”
UPDATE 10:40 pm ET: Harrison replied to Mediaite with the following statement: “Texas is a pro-life state, and I want to make sure unborn babies are protected as persons throughout Texas law.”
Texas holds a legislative session every other year, in odd-numbered years, so the earliest such legislation could be introduced would be the session scheduled to begin on Jan. 10, 2023.
Watch the video above, via CNN.
