Alito, J., dissenting
op., at 2). In another, we were criticized for ruling on a stay application while “barely bother[ing] to explain [our] conclusion,” a disposition that was labeled as “emblematic of too much of this Court’s shadow-docket decisionmaking—which every day becomes more unreasoned.” Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, 594 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2021) (Kagan, J., dissenting from denial of application for injunctive relief) (slip op., at 1–2). And in a third case in which a stay was granted, we were condemned for not exhibiting the “restraint” that was supposedly exercised in the past and for not “resisting” the Government’s effort to “shortcut” normal process. Barr v. East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 5). Cf. Does 1–3 v. Mills, 595 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (Barrett, J., concurring in denial of application for injunctive relief) (slip op., at 1) (warning that the Court should not act “on a short fuse without benefit of full briefing and oral argument” in a case that is “first to address the questions presented”).
I did not agree with these criticisms at the time, but if they were warranted in the cases in which they were made, they are emphatically true here. As narrowed by the Court of Appeals, the stay that would apply if we failed to broaden it would not remove mifepristone from the market. It would simply restore the circumstances that existed (and that the Government defended) from 2000 to 2016 under three Presidential administrations. In addition, because the applicants’ Fifth Circuit appeal has been put on a fast track, with oral argument scheduled to take place in 26 days, there is reason to believe that they would get the relief they now seek—from either the Court of Appeals or this Court—in the near future if their arguments on the merits are persuasive.
At present, the applicants are not entitled to a stay because they have not shown that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the interim. The applicants claim that
