US woman challenges driving fine on basis her pregnancy means two people in car following Roe vs Wade ruling

Brandy Bottone argues she is allowed to drive in a high occupancy vehicle lane in Texas because her unborn baby is a person after Roe v Wade. Photo / 123RF

A pregnant woman is challenging a fine for driving in a high occupancy vehicle lane in Texas arguing her unborn child was a passenger following last month's Supreme Court ruling on Roe v Wade.

Brandy Bottone, 32, was hit with a US$215 (about $348.50) ticket on the Dallas Expressway as she rushed to pick up her 6-year-old son.

She plans to contest the ticket in court because Texas, one of 13 states with trigger abortion bans, now regards a foetus as a person.

About half of US states have banned or are planning to ban abortion following the Supreme Court decision, and Bottone's case is being watched closely by legal observers.

"I think it is a great case to prove the point of all of the personhood statutes which are popping up," Carliss Chatman, associate law professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, told The Telegraph.

"It's a good case to show you can't have the negative aspect of eliminating reproductive rights, without giving a pregnant person the benefits.

"If a foetus is a person the rights must be complete.

"The HOV case is traffic law. But if she is successful, it would enable parents to be successful in cases relating to the tax code, insurance, child support and immigration.

"If the right of a foetus starts at conception, it means you cannot deport a pregnant person. Nor can she be detained because you would be detaining a US citizen without due process."

In Texas, an unborn baby is considered a person under its 1925 abortion law, but it is not under the state's traffic code.

"With everything that's going on, especially in Texas, this counts as a baby," Bottone told the Washington Post.

She added that one of the deputies predicted that her challenge would be successful.