And yet the Heidi Group’s founder, Carol Everett, is still in the mix. In January, as Ms. Everett’s state funding sources were drying up during investigations into the Heidi Group’s finances, she applied for federal family planning dollars — money from Title X, the program that Planned Parenthood has backed out of because of the Trump-Pence administration’s domestic gag rule that prevents providers from discussing abortion with their patients. When that application failed, Ms. Everett tried again in July, this time under a new name: Vita Nuova Inc.

At first glance, it is puzzling that someone at the center of such a public kerfuffle would seek to recreate the very conditions that landed her there, and on a bigger scale. But a closer look reveals the logic behind Ms. Everett’s efforts: What happened in Texas with the Heidi Group wasn’t a mistake, or bureaucratic blunder, or gamble that just didn’t pay off. It was supposed to be a new kind of government-and-faith-group partnership predicated on a shared ideology that, if not expressly religious, was rooted in conservative Christian beliefs and practices, and for which the state had been laying the groundwork for years.

When Texas booted Planned Parenthood out of publicly funded reproductive care programs in the early 2010s, journalists and activists — myself included — investigated the state’s claims that a hodgepodge of nonspecialist providers could fill in for Planned Parenthood, all coming to the same conclusion: Nope. As the years went on, the state’s own numbers showed that Texas’ safety net programs served many fewer patients than were seen by Planned Parenthood, culminating with the Heidi Group scandal.

Now similar efforts are being made at the federal level, and this time, funds are being awarded to a fake clinic organization from California with ties to none other than the Heidi Group.

Ms. Everett’s first application for Title X funding was made together with California’s Obria Group. Like the Heidi Group, Obria is led by one woman on a religious crusade, Kathleen Eaton Bravo, and first sought local funds (which it has been accused of misdirecting) before turning its attention to Title X.