If there is one lesson from the disastrous 2014 elections, it's that we will never beat back the rightwing takeover of our country by going into a defensive crouch.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Our Favorite Books of 2014 - Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights and Blue Jeans in High Places: The Coming Makeover of American Politics - Book review

If there is one lesson from the disastrous 2014 elections, it's that we will never beat back the rightwing takeover of our country by going into a defensive crouch.

Even as Republicans swept into power in Congress and in governors' mansions across the country, voters affirmed progressive values in ballot measure after ballot measure: raising the minimum wage, protecting the environment, legalizing marijuana, and defending abortion rights.

A progressive politics as bold and forward leaning as the rightwing backlash can win. But we need a political culture and political leaders who are not afraid to champion progressive values.

Two books published this year point the way.

In Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights (Picador) Katha Pollitt explains how abortion-rights defenders bought into the rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement, and beat an unfortunate retreat.

This approach led to the massive contraction of abortion access: "waiting periods, inaccurate scripts that doctors must read to patients (abortion causes heart disease, mental illness, suicide), bans on state Medicaid payments, restrictions on insurance coverage," making abortion "too far away, too expensive ... too encumbered by restrictions, regulations and humiliations" for many women.

Ambivalence about abortion is really ambivalence about women's autonomy, Pollitt argues.

"As long as women were firmly ensconced in the family as wives and mothers with few rights and little social power, abortion was legal or tolerated as a way to save unmarried daughters from shame, limit family size, and protect exhausted mothers from the rigors of yet more pregnancies and births."

But all that changed as women became more involved in public and political life. Today, the antiabortion movement is focused on keeping women in our place by enforcing state controls on our sexuality. It...