OK, OK, OK, the title may be confusing, but I can explain! Don’t give me a ticket! Yes, this topic may seem uninteresting but don’t give up! Read this, and I will give you no tickets for the rest of your life. OK, I’m kidding, but actually, I have a question for you: Imagine you are pregnant (sorry boys), and you are driving peacefully down the road in a lane where a driver must have more than one person in the car, also known as an HOV (High-Occupancy Vehicle) lane. You are the only one in the car, and you get pulled over, but for what reason? The officer tells you that this is an HOV lane—and you are aware—and you point to your stomach.
To Be or Not to Be
This scenario happened to Brandy Bottone, a Texas woman who was 34 weeks pregnant. She got pulled over, and she declared that this wasn’t fair. She argued with the sheriff’s deputy that her unborn child was a human being: “Bottone, who was 34 weeks pregnant at the time, told the officers that with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, her unborn child was now recognized as a living person. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24,” NBC news stated. The officer wasn’t willing to give up. He mentioned that the rule states that it must be two persons in two separate bodies.
Now what?
“Although the penal code in Texas recognizes a fetus as a person, it appears there’s no language in the state Transportation Department’s code that recognizes a fetus as a person or passenger,” NBC News tells us. So, how did they sort this out? Deputies told Bottone that if she argued before a judge concerning the ticket, it might give her a chance to avoid paying the fine (which was $215). Bottone did fight the ticket (which was 215 dollars) with the appropriate reasoning that her unborn baby should count as another passenger of her or his mother’s car.
What do you think? Should her unborn baby have counted as a passenger in Bottone’s vehicle? Think of those signs that say “Baby on Board.”
To Be or Not to Be
This scenario happened to Brandy Bottone, a Texas woman who was 34 weeks pregnant. She got pulled over, and she declared that this wasn’t fair. She argued with the sheriff’s deputy that her unborn child was a human being: “Bottone, who was 34 weeks pregnant at the time, told the officers that with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, her unborn child was now recognized as a living person. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24,” NBC news stated. The officer wasn’t willing to give up. He mentioned that the rule states that it must be two persons in two separate bodies.
Now what?
“Although the penal code in Texas recognizes a fetus as a person, it appears there’s no language in the state Transportation Department’s code that recognizes a fetus as a person or passenger,” NBC News tells us. So, how did they sort this out? Deputies told Bottone that if she argued before a judge concerning the ticket, it might give her a chance to avoid paying the fine (which was $215). Bottone did fight the ticket (which was 215 dollars) with the appropriate reasoning that her unborn baby should count as another passenger of her or his mother’s car.
What do you think? Should her unborn baby have counted as a passenger in Bottone’s vehicle? Think of those signs that say “Baby on Board.”
