The Court concluded that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion and that Roe and Casey should be overruled.
The majority therefore returned authority to regulate abortion to elected representatives.
Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence similarly emphasized his view that the Constitution does not take either side on abortion.
Midler's reference to “God's will” was political satire aimed more broadly at religious rhetoric sometimes used in debates about pregnancy and abortion.
That distinction is important because viral posts frequently compress complicated events into slogans.
Midler was making a joke about political culture.
She was not summarizing the Supreme Court's legal opinion.
Viagra Is More Complicated Than the Meme Suggests
There was another complication.
Viagra is a real medicine, not merely a cultural symbol.
The brand became famous as a treatment for erectile dysfunction, but sildenafil—the drug's active ingredient—also has important medical applications beyond the punchline that made Midler's post effective.
This led some online commenters to point out that joking about banning the drug inevitably simplifies its medical role.
That criticism does not necessarily undermine Midler's intended argument.
Satire almost always simplifies.
But it demonstrates what happens when a political joke goes viral: people begin interrogating the literal details of something that was originally designed as rhetorical exaggeration.
Midler's point was about perceived inconsistency in bodily-autonomy politics.
The pharmacology of sildenafil was secondary to the joke.
Still, the discussion showed how quickly social-media satire can evolve into a much broader debate.
Why Bette Midler Was Perfectly Positioned for the Moment
The joke also worked because of who delivered it.
Midler was 76 at the time.
By 2022, she had spent more than five decades in American entertainment.
She had been a singer, movie star, Broadway performer and comedian. Her career had included everything from dramatic ballads to outrageous stage humor.
Subtlety had never been her only mode.
That history gave the Viagra tweet a particular flavor.
Coming from an anonymous political account, the line might have disappeared into the endless stream of post-Dobbs commentary.
Coming from Bette Midler, it became entertainment news.
Her public persona had always combined glamour with irreverence.
She could be sentimental one moment and deliberately vulgar the next.
The June 27 post fit neatly into that tradition.
A Tweet Built for the Internet
There was also something structurally perfect about Midler's post.
It was short.
It contained a famous brand name.
It addressed sex.
It addressed religion.
It addressed one of the biggest political stories in the country.
And it ended with an insult.
In the attention economy of social media, that combination was almost engineered for circulation.
People didn't need to understand the details of Dobbs to understand the joke.
Supporters could repost it as a political statement.
Critics could repost it to condemn the comparison.
News outlets could turn it into headlines.
And users who were exhausted by long legal arguments could engage with something that required only seconds to read.