Nearly 180,000 Texas women and men are likely to lose access to birth control and preventative examinations next month because the Legislature recently slashed financing for family planning services by two-thirds.

But socially conservative lawmakers succeeded in their efforts to increase money for a small state program, Alternatives to Abortion Services, more ideologically aligned with their politics. Lawmakers added $300,000 to the program’s budget for each of the coming two fiscal years, bringing it to $8.3 million for 2012 and for 2013.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission allocates money from Alternatives to Abortion Services via the Texas Pregnancy Care Network, a nonprofit agency. Formed in 2006, the network oversees 47 providers, including 26 pregnancy centers (out of more than 100 in the state), social services, adoption agencies and maternity homes, and says that more than 1,500 women seek its services each month. One of those crisis pregnancy resource centers, Austin LifeCare, several miles north of the Capitol, has offered free services to pregnant women for 27 years, including counseling, diapers, clothing and classes like parenting and personal finance. Obstetricians and nurses donate their time to offer ultrasounds and pregnancy tests, the only medical services performed on the premises.