This is the inside story of how the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion — shooting down compromise and testing the boundaries of how the law is decided.

To dismantle that decision, Justice Alito and others had to push hard, the records and interviews show. Some steps, like his apparent selective preview of the draft opinion, were time-honored ones. But in overturning Roe, the court set aside more than precedent: It tested the boundaries of how cases are decided.