Fetus Counts As Passenger In HOV Lane, TX Woman Fighting Ticket Says

PLANO, TX — The Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade is having far-flung repercussions beyond restricting abortions in states like Texas, where a pregnant woman told a state trooper that her unborn child qualifies as a second occupant needed to travel in the state’s high-occupancy vehicle commuter lanes.

Brandy Battone was stopped in the HOV lane of the Central Expressway in Dallas by a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper during 8 a.m. rush hour traffic on June 29, a few days after the court overturned the landmark 1973 ruling legalizing abortion.

When the trooper asked who else was in the car, Battone, of Plano, replied, “Oh, it’s just the two of us,” she told The Washington Post. “And he said, ‘Where?”

Battone, who is 34 weeks pregnant, pointed at her swollen belly, telling the Dallas Morning News that she explained, “My baby girl is right here. She is a person.”

“He just looked at me, ‘How do I answer this?’ ”

“ ‘Ma’am, it’s two people outside of the body,’ ” the trooper finally managed, Battone told the Dallas newspaper, the first to report the story. She called it “a weird way of wording it.”

The state’s penal code does recognize a fetus as a person, which Battone pointed out to law enforcement officials, but the Texas Transportation Department is moot on that point.

“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,’ Battone told the Dallas Morning News.

“One law is saying that this is a baby and now he's telling me this baby that's jabbing my ribs is not a baby,” she told news station WFAA. “Why can't it all make sense?”

Authorities didn’t buy it and issued a ticket carrying a $275 fine.

Battone told WFAA she wasn’t trying to make a political statement but rather fight a ticket by pointing out inconsistencies in Texas state laws. She has a court date, and even the officer who stopped her said she may have a case, the news station reported.

Still, she’s receiving messages of support “from women all over the world” who are conveying “all sorts of emotions,” she told WFAA, adding, “I’m just trying to keep my blood pressure down; let’s not go into labor yet.”

Battone, the mother of three, has heard from both abortion foes and those advocating for abortion rights. She remains neutral on the subject, telling WFAA, “If there’s a pro-women category, that’s my stance.”

Toward that end, her family has established a GoFundMe campaign to support Dallas-based Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support.

Battone’s court date is July 20.

Some Patients Can Get Critical Drugs

Other unintended consequences of the Supreme Court ruling are more serious. For example, the drug methotrexate used to treat autoimmune conditions such as lupus and cancer can also end pregnancies.

Becky Schwarz, who lives in northern Virginia, told NBC News’ “Today” show she learned by looking at her patient portal the drug would no longer be prescribed for her to manage the pain, exhaustion and rashes associated with flareups of the disease.

Her health care provider paused prescriptions for Methotrexate to make sure it complies with post-Roe policy, “Today” reported.

“It was a large overcorrection,” Schwarz said. “I was surprised by how quickly it happened.”

Methotrexate is widely prescribed to treat rheumatoid arthritis and cancer, as well as to induce abortion or treat an early pregnancy loss, including ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, according to the journal BMJ.

“Unfortunately, arthritis patients who rely on methotrexate are reporting difficulty accessing it, the nonprofit Arthritis Foundation said in a statement to BMJ. “At least one state — Texas — allows pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for misoprostol and methotrexate, which together can be used for medical abortions.

“Already there are reports that people in Texas who miscarry or take methotrexate for arthritis are having trouble getting their prescriptions filled.”

Misoprostol is commonly prescribed to prevent stomach ulcers and induce labor. Dr. Natalie Crawford, an Austin-Texas, OB-GYN and fertility doctor, told Slate the drug is often used by physicians to soften the cervix of a patient who isn’t pregnant before doing routine gynecological procedures.