‘It shakes you to your core’: the anti-abortion extremists gaining ground on the right

Operation Save America opposes Covid vaccination, women in power and same-sex marriage - and allies are making inroads among legislators

Hundreds of anti-abortion protesters lined blocks along a four-lane thoroughfare called Indian School Road in Phoenix, Arizona, enduring the suck of whooshing cars and blistering late June desert heat to advocate for their cause - effectively, theocracy in America.

Rising temperatures promised a sweaty, nauseous apex of 104F for the protest in front of Camelback Family Planning and abortion clinic. Their ranks were defined by gruesome and bloody signs, some taller than the protesters who held them, a microphone and an amplifier.