Women of the world: celebrate! Well, maybe just blow a noisemaker or two; you shouldn’t get too excited. On Wednesday, the U.S Supreme Court declined an arts-and-crafts chain’s request for an emergency injunction that would block the contraceptive coverage requirements in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare to its friends). But this isn’t the last we’ll hear of this case: the complaining companies retain the ability to appeal to the Supreme Court.

With the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act late last month — and our blissfully imminent access to affordable contraception, thanks to that ruling — what better time to reflect on why accessible birth control is important to women?

Yesterday, Elizabeth Banks, currently better known as Effie from the Hunger Games, stood up for women everywhere when she announced that birth control can be used for things other than contraception. I know I know- crazy. But going one step further, the star credits the pill for the existence of her 1-year-old son, who was born via In Vitro Fertilization.

If you ever chased your older brother with red paint-covered tampons out of revenge (I know, I’m twisted), you’ll get a kick out of the women who defaced former presidential candidate Rick Perry’s Facebook page and even consulted him on menstruation since the conservative governor seems to be the end-all source on women’s health.

It’s hard to believe that it was less than two weeks ago when Rush Limbaugh first apologized for calling Georgetown student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” during his show. The timeline is a tough thing to wrap your head around, due in large part to the unending wave of minutiae-laden tirades that have resulted from it. Yes, Limbaugh apologized, and then we all remembered that Rush Limbaugh is Rush Limbaugh and we had a laugh at the absurd idea that any of us had cared what he thinks about women anyway.

But the story didn’t die.

In the first sentence of her Monday Daily Caller column titled “Conservative women are the third sex,” Manning Up author Kay Hymowitz says what most of us have been thinking for weeks: “By now you’ve probably heard more than enough of Slutgate,” of course referring to the excessively reported Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke debacle that we’re all just waiting for everyone to shut up about. Though she undoubtedly feels the same way, Hymowitz goes on to describe how the scandal shows that conservative women are treated as a third sex.

If you want an excuse to deny your awful boyfriend some action, use the Liberal Ladies Who Lunch’s upcoming sex strike as an excuse to keep your pants zipped (or sweatpants on) for a week.

As we’ve noted before, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews hasn’t exactly embraced girl power, so it’s a little odd to see him continuously swipe at conservatives for their handling of the recent contraception debate.

Referencing the birth control buzz, Matthews said during a Sunday episode of “Hardball” that “one of the time warps these days is watching Republicans ignore the simple fact that women vote and are the majority voters” and showed old footage of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and former presidential contender Hillary Clinton speaking at campaign events to highlight the contrast between the way women’s rights are viewed now versus four years ago.

In the wake of excessive nationwide debate on contraception coverage, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she regrets supporting a recent measure that would have granted both religious and non-religious employers the freedom not to provide staffers birth control or other health insurance coverage required by the 2010 health-care law if these things did not align with their moral beliefs.

Speaking to the Anchorage Daily News, self-described “moderate” Murkowski said that she would not have backed last week’s measure, which was rejected by the Senate 51 to 48, had she known the way women would perceive her support for the proposition. Upon her return from D.C, moderate women who had previously voted for Murkowski approached her and indicated that she was on thin ice.

In case you missed last night’s Republican debate (which would be sad because it was highly entertaining), and feel left out because you were watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory instead of listening to the Gingrich-Santorum birth control craziness, here’s a video of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on this morning’s episode of MSNBC’s Morning Joe to fill you in.