It comes as no surprise that the Republican Party is now planning to capitalize on the blatantly dishonest, deceptively edited Planned Parenthood “sting” video, with yet another big push to roll back women’s rights.

With everything these politicians should be focusing on, this is what they choose to do — attack women’s health providers and the right to a safe, legal abortion.

The GOP is going hard on abortion politics — and Planned Parenthood specifically — following the release of the video depicting a top official for the group casually talking about doctors collecting fetal organs for biomedical companies during abortions.

“The gravity of the situation most definitely” changes things, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told POLITICO Thursday. “This is not just Republicans. It’s independents. It’s Democrats…. Americans don’t want their tax dollars spent doing what they’re doing.”

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his two top deputies — McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) — called for investigations almost immediately after the controversial video was made public, including whether it profits off fetal body parts. And within 24 hours, at least two powerful committees had announced probes on the issue.

McCarthy is already talking about defunding the organization through the appropriations process. And in the Senate, GOP leaders who have been eyeing a vote on legislation banning abortions after 20 weeks of gestation say this will give them momentum to clear the bill later this session.

Just to recap again: the right wing operatives who made this video tried their best to get Planned Parenthood medical director Dr. Deborah Nucatola to say they “sell” fetal tissue and organs, but she specifically denied this — more than once — saying: “Nobody should be selling tissue. That’s just not the goal here.”

Despite this very clear statement to the contrary, these right wing operatives then made a video that says Planned Parenthood is selling fetal tissue, and now the Republican Party is jumping aboard the Deception Express and trying to push this absolutely false claim.

Most people would call a tactic like this “lying.”

Also note that Republican lawmakers actually saw this video weeks before it was released to the public, and now are unwilling to answer questions about why they waited until now to take action.

Rep. Tim Murphy, a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus and chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee looking into the video, said at a Wednesday news conference he’d seen the clip weeks before. Asked afterward why he and others waited until this week to take action, Murphy struggled for an answer before abruptly ending the interview with CQ Roll Call, saying he should not be quoted and remarking, “This interview didn’t happen.”