‘My second passenger has arrived!’ Mother who tried to get out of $275 ticket for driving in HOV lane by claiming her unborn child counted as a passenger after Roe v Wade was overturned gives birth to baby girl
- Brandy Bottone, 32, of Plano, Texas, gave birth to her second passenger – a baby girl – on Sunday
- When she was 34-weeks pregnant, Bottone was pulled over and ticketed for using a ‘high occupancy vehicle’ lane on Interstate 75
- Bottone tried to argue that because the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade her unborn fetus should count as a person
- The sheriff’s officer who ticketed her said that to use the HOV lane there has to be two separate people in the vehicle
- Bottone has vowed to fight the case, but her first hearing, set for July 20, was postponed for another two to six months
The woman who tried to dodge a $275 HOV lane ticket by claiming her unborn child counted as a passenger has given birth to a baby girl.
Brandy Bottone, 32, of Plano, Texas posted the happy news on her Instagram account on Sunday.
‘My second passenger has arrived!’ she wrote in the comments section on the post of a pink splotch that said: ‘It’s a girl! Baby Bottone is here.’
‘We are so in love and will be spending all our time loving on baby girl,’ Bottone wrote.
The name and the weight of the new passenger have yet to be revealed.
Brandy Bottone, 32, of Plano, Texas has given birth to a baby girl. She made headlines for trying to get out of a traffic ticket by claiming her unborn fetus counted as a second passenger for the HOV lane
Brandy Bottone announced that her ‘second passenger’ a baby girl was born on Sunday
Bottone made headlines this summer after she tried to use the overturning of Roe v Wade as a way to get out of a traffic ticket.
She was going to pick up her oldest son at 34 weeks pregnant on the morning of June 29th when she used the ‘high occupancy vehicle’ lane on Interstate Highway 75.
‘I hoped in the HOV lane as I read the sign that said parenthesis two and I thought one and two,’ she touched her shoulder and then her pregnant belly in a video interview with the Dallas Morning News.
Brandy Bottone, from Texas, was ticketed for driving solo in an HOV lane . She says she plans to fight the $215 ticket saying her unborn child should count as a person
Bottone was stopped because she appeared to be driving solo – she claims there were two people in the car… her and her unborn child
Bottone was 34 weeks pregnant at the time she was pulled over but the officer said it did not mean she qualified for the HOV lane
It seemed like everything was going fine until she exited the highway.
‘As I exited the HOV, there was a checkpoint at the end of the exit. I slammed on my brakes, and I was pulled over by police. An officer peeked in and asked, ‘Is there anybody else in the car?’, Bottone told the paper. ‘I pointed to my stomach and said, ‘My baby girl is right here. She is a person.”
The officer was not convinced.
‘He said, ‘Oh, no. It’s got to be two people outside of the body.”
‘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. ‘So I don’t know why you’re not seeing that,’ I said’.
She intends to fight the ticket during a court appearance on July 20 – around the same time as her due date. Brandy and husband Austin Bottone are pictured, above
‘He was like, ‘I don’t want to deal with this.’ Bottone explained. ‘He said, ‘Ma’am, it means two persons outside of the body.’ He waved me on to the next cop who gave me a citation and said, ‘If you fight it, it will most likely get dropped.”
Bottone said that she was outraged.
‘This has my blood boiling. How could this be fair? According to the new law, this is a life!’
HOV rules specifically require two passengers to be traveling in the car together in order to use the special lane. The police say the other people need to be ‘outside the body’
HOV rules specifically require two passengers to be traveling in the car together in order to use the special lane.
Police do regular checks to ensure that the rules of the road are adhered to.
‘If a fetus is considered a life before birth, then why doesn’t that count as a second passenger?’ she said.
The lanes were created to reduce traffic and encourage Texans to drive less.
The problem arises because although the Texas penal code recognizes an unborn child as a person, the Texas Transportation Code does not.
Furthermore, as an unborn child in a womb does not take up an extra seat, the vehicle also would also not meet the criteria required to drive in the HOV lane.
Bottone intends to fight the ticket when she appears in court. Her first hearing, scheduled for July 20, was postponed. It could take another two to six months before she gets another court date.
Abortions are all but impossible to obtain in Texas following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last month.
Texas law means abortions are illegal after six weeks of pregnancy.
There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest, though there is one for women at risk of ‘substantial impairment of major bodily function.’
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