Attorney General Greg Abbott announced on Friday the creation of the Choose Life Advisory Committee, a group that will make recommendations for spending money generated by "Choose Life" license plates.

State officials are optimistic about the new Texas Women’s Health Program, which launched this week amid a long-running legislative fight. But at least one state lawmaker thinks there’s a problem with the program’s list of providers.

The end is near for the federally funded Women’s Health Program. Could a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood really stand in the way of the state launching the Texas Women's Health Program to replace it?

Women's health providers in Texas have had Nov. 1 marked on their calendars for months. It was supposed to be the day the state-funded Women's Health Program would launch. But it hasn't. Not yet, at least.

A ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday gives Texas the go-ahead to cut Planned Parenthood out of the Women's Health Program. 

From the evolution of state and federally subsidized contraception to the battle over Planned Parenthood to the cost of unplanned pregnancies, this six-part series is the most comprehensive look yet at the politics of reproductive health in Texas.

The clock is ticking for reproductive health clinics that are affiliated with abortion providers — the state will force Planned Parenthood and others like them out of the Women’s Health Program early next month.

In part two of "Fertile Ground," our occasional series on the battle over family planning, we go to West Texas to look at a fight that has centered on Planned Parenthood.

This latest ruling means the Health and Human Services Commission cannot exclude Planned Parenthood clinics from the Women's Health Program while a lawsuit on the matter is pending in district court.

On this week's podcast, Ross, Emily, Morgan and Ben weigh the recent resignation of Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott and the back-and-forth court rulings on Planned Parenthood and the Women's Health Program.

The first part in our occasional series examining the battle over family planning in Texas considers the impact of lawmakers' orders to reduce spending on birth control and cancer screenings. A UT-Austin research group is beginning to track the fallout.

The Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas merger makes the organization leaner and more efficient, advocates say. But they also hope it helps them defend their branches from intensifying anti-abortion legislation.

Ben, Evan, Ross and Emily talk about races to watch in the fast-approaching primary, Gov. Rick Perry's budget compact announcement and the Planned Parenthood merger. And Evan hears from some special birthday guests.

UPDATED: The boards of three regional Planned Parenthood branches — North Texas, Central Texas and the Capital Region — have voted to merge, forming a $29 million-per-year mega-organization with 26 clinics.

Aaronson maps Medicaid patients' access to pharmacies, Aguilar on Mexicans in exile, Batheja on an unlikely threat to a veteran lawmaker's re-election, Galbraith and Murphy interactively track reservoir levels around the state, Grissom on the ringleaders who rule the state's largest youth lockup, Hamilton on how much Texas professors are paid, Ramsey on who's conservative, Ramshaw and Tan on the latest Planned Parenthood kerfuffle, Root on what Santorum's exit means for the Texas primary, and parts 4 (by M. Smith) and 5 (by Tan and Dehn) of our series on school district closures: The best of our best content from April 9-13, 2012.

Planned Parenthood branches in Texas have filed a federal lawsuit in an effort to block their exclusion from the state's Women's Health Program.

In a fiscal switcheroo, Texas could free up state dollars to fund the embattled Women's Health Program by seeking federal block grants for other programs, the state's health commissioner wrote in a letter to House Democrats on Tuesday. 

It took years of bipartisan efforts for the Women's Health Program to even begin. Today, it is the subject of a bitter political divide. No one should be surprised.