While there have been many, many polls on the abortion issue over the years, and many that have shown more people holding a pro-life vs. a "pro-choice" position, this is the first time in the history of the Gallup polling company, that their poll has shown that a majority of the American people are pro-life.  From the story:

Gallup said on Friday that a new poll, conducted May 7 to 10, found "51 percent of Americans calling themselves 'pro-life' on the issue of abortion and 42 percent 'pro-choice.' This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995."

"The new results, obtained from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs survey, represent a significant shift from a year ago, when 50 percent were pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life. Prior to now, the highest percentage identifying as pro-life was 46 percent, in both August 2001 and May 2002." ...

The percentage of Republicans and those who lean to that party who label themselves "pro-life" rose by 10 percentage points over the past year to 70 percent. As there was essentially no shift among Democrats on this issue (33 percent said they were "pro-life," unchanged since last year) much of the shift clearly came from the Republican side. ...

So what's happened recently?  Well the biggest event would be the election of the most pro-abortion president in the history of the country...and the fact that, since taking office, he has worked to roll back previous regulatory and legislative gains by pro-life advocates.

Maybe people are starting to pay attention.

Of course this comes as many "moderates" in the Republican Party have suggested it needs to move away from cultural issues (or even moderate cultural positions entirely) in order to attract more voters at the ballot box.  They insinuate that many people have abandoned the GOP, or even become Democrats, in response to the party's stances on issues like abortion and gay marriage.  But now we see that that's just not the case.  If it were, the numbers in the above paragraph would be different.  It would show a decrease in the number of pro-life Democrats, if indeed droves of pro-choice Republicans were switching parties.

In other words, strong positions on cultural issues have nothing to do with the GOP's problems at the ballot box.  Which is something that can't be said for Republican spending policies in recent years.