PHILADELPHIA — It was months before a pivotal national election. A strong conservative majority had been cemented on the U.S. Supreme Court, and legislators in one state had passed a law restricting abortion access that they hoped, through the court challenges that followed, would become the vehicle for overturning Roe v. Wade. In a legal opinion on that measure issued months before the Supreme Court would officially rule, Samuel A. Alito Jr. fiercely defended the notion that states had a legitimate interest in imposing restrictions on when and under what circumstances abortions could be provi…
