As Daily Kos continues to cover, while the nation faces the novel coronavirus pandemic, Republicans are happy to distract from the public health crisis by any means necessary. Attack trans youth? Absolutely. Make it impossible for trans adults to update their legal documents? Yup. Slam down on every option for pregnant people (or people who could become pregnant) to have a shred of autonomy and dignity? Why, of course. While this is a disturbing nationwide trend, one state that continues to make headlines (and for good reason) is Texas.

One example comes state lawmaker Briscoe Cain. Cain, a Republican, recently filed HB 153, legislation that would permit pregnant people to drive in the HOV lane by themselves, as first covered by Jezebel. What’s so weird about this legislation, and moreover, what’s so bad about it? Let’s break down the possible implications below.

At a very brief glance, it’s easy to think this bill is one of the few bits of consideration Texas legislators wanted to offer pregnant people in their state. After all, who wants to sit in congested traffic? This is probably the logic Cain and those who may support the bill hoped the public would rely on. However, HB 153 is pretty clearly a discreet effort to establish a fetus as a person. And given the enormous anti-choice movement in Texas (and across the nation), that’s a scary precedent we have to be extremely mindful of when it comes to passing bills that are otherwise odd but harmless on the surface.

The bill (which is brief, coming in at less than one page) suggests that a pregnant driver is “entitled to use any high occupancy vehicle lane” in Texas “regardless of whether the vehicle is occupied by a passenger other than the operator’s unborn child.” Notice that even the bill doesn’t say “fetus” but rather “unborn child.”

In addition to the possible legal precedent, it’s also a surreal predicament to imagine how police officers would determine who is actually pregnant; sonogram? Signed letter from one’s physician? Visible bump? And while the bill—surprisingly—doesn’t use the words “woman” or “mother,” I’m willing to bet a pregnant trans man would not have quite as easy a time being pulled over in Texas as a pregnant cis woman. 

Given the horrifying, deeply restrictive anti-abortion law already in Texas, it’s hard to dismiss any further efforts to give a fetus personhood, even if they initially read as strange or even amusing. And with the onslaught of anti-trans bills in mind, we’ve seen how quickly rallying cries about keeping trans girls out of girls’ sports can go from obscure to the mainstream. The ability for conservative state lawmakers to get their harmful views into the national consciousness is concerning because, apparently, many other folks are willing to jump on board if it means keeping the public distracted from their failures to take care of constituents.

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