Pregnant woman's brilliant response to officer before copping $313 fine
A pregnant woman is being praised for her quick-witted comeback to a police officer after being pulled over for using a highway’s carpool lane.
Brandy Bottone — who was 34 weeks pregnant at the time — says she was slapped with a A$313 fine on June 29 as she rushed to pick up her son.
The mum said she was driving on a North Texas highway when she decided to take the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane because she “couldn’t be a minute late”.
“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,” she told the Dallas Morning News.
“An officer peeked in and asked, ‘Is there anybody else in the car?’
Ms Bottone said she responded “yes”, prompting him to ask her where they were.
“I pointed to my stomach and said, ‘My baby girl is right here. She is a person’,” she said, adding that the officer told her the law requires passengers to be outside of the body.
The frustrated mum then argued that due to the US Supreme Court’s recent overturning of Roe v. Wade — the right to an abortion — her unborn daughter should be counted as a person.
“And then I said, 'Well [I’m] not trying to throw a political mix here, but with everything going on, this counts as a baby’,” she told NBC.
Ms Bottone said the officer told her he didn’t want to deal with the situation anymore and waved her on to another cop who handed her the ticket.
She the incident has made her “blood boil” and vows to fight it in court in late July — about the same time as her due date.
Woman praised for her response
Details about the mum's traffic stop have been published in numerous publications across the US, prompting many people to applaud her online.
“Good for her,” one person said on Facebook.
“You go girl! How is that an unborn child is counted as a living human when it comes to abortion, but not while driving in a HOV lane?” a woman said, noting how far along Ms Bottone is in her pregnancy.
“She's not wrong. Now that roe v wade is overturned they claim a foetus has rights and is a human so it's now a passenger regardless of how far along she is,” another wrote.
“Cant have it both ways. Either an unborn child is a person or it isn’t. I hope she wins,” a fourth woman chimed in.
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