With Independence Day upon us, our nation is preparing to celebrate the day we declared independence from the tyranny that ruled the colonists that first settled here.

It is unfortunate then that women in the U.S. have to continue to battle to be able to make decisions for themselves to have their rights protected. It is odd that in this day and age, roughly half of the country’s population has to fight so hard for their rights. Women got the right to vote 94 years ago, yet they continue to be treated as second class citizens in America. And when things should be improving for the gender, it seems things are actually getting worse.

The most recent example was this week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows closely-held corporations to refuse to provide insurance coverage for some forms of birth control. The decision said it was a narrow one, applying only to contraceptives, and justices were only considering four kinds in the case, but the court has since clarified its position to note that closely-held corporations can deny coverage of all forms of birth control — for women.

When they will rule about such entities not being required to pay for vasectomies for men remains to be seen.

The fact that Hobby Lobby, the company that got the case to the Supreme Court level, has a significant chunk of investments in companies that produce birth control and drugs used in abortions is another hypocritical story for another day.

Lest one think that the ruling won’t affect many companies, it’s important to point out that 90 percent of the companies in the U.S. are closely held and they employ 52 percent of the country’s workforce. Not such a narrow scope, is it?

It’s been fashionable to pretend that women aren’t persons, but they are. The Affordable Care Act is a law, under which women should have equal protection. When a doctor writes a prescription, women should be able to fill it, and it shouldn’t matter that their employer or their pharmacist doesn’t want to pay for it or fill it.

Then there’s the issue of patient privacy. A woman may be prescribed a hormone pill for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with contraception. Women may require hormones to regulate the effects of menopause, or because they are suffering from hair loss or from endometriosis. They may require the hormones to replace ones lost due to surgery. In order for her to receive these drugs, prescribed noncontraceptively, she will have to violate her own right to medical privacy.

And an employer also shouldn’t be able to dictate what medical treatment its employees receive, that should be up to the medical professionals and the patient.

The costs of birth control can be prohibitive from many to pay out of pocket, insurance on the exchange isn’t an affordable option for those who are offered it through their employer and not taking birth control can, in fact, create health issues for women who are prescribed the hormones. Not to mention the possibility of an increase in abortions because companies are trying to save the lives of unconceived children.

This decision, on the heels of the court striking down a buffer zone law in Massachusetts — a ruling that, in spite of the court’s decision only applying to that particular law, is sure to spawn similar action in other cities that have such laws on the books — that had prevented anti-abortion protesters from congregating too close to women’s health clinics, is yet another skirmish in the escalating war on women that went the wrong way.

In reality, the message the U.S. Supreme Court just sent the country is that women’s rights are not equal to those of men and the unborn — and certainly not companies.