NARAL and its circle of allies are slobbering over the political prospects offered by South Dakota’s decision to outlaw almost all abortions.

After all, Americans have consistently supported abortion rights for years, and the South Dakota vote has shaken pro-choicers and Democrats from their complacency that all is well with their pet cause. Pro-choice politicians should be able to ride the lightning-rod issue to victory this fall. Right?

Maybe not.

Abortion statistics are as tricky as those in sports. On the surface, for example, a baseball player might hit for a decent average – around .265, with some home runs sprinkled in – and would seem to be a solid player for any ball club. But a closer look at statistics might reveal something else – that he’s a miserable hitter in the late innings when the game’s on the line, he can’t hit a curve ball, and strikes out too much. In other words, he’s not all of what he seems.

Recently, respected polling service Zogby International probed “inside the numbers” on abortion, surveying 30,117 respondents in the lower 48 states from March 10-14 for Associated Television News and The O’Leary Report. Predictably, the poll, with a margin of error of less than 1 percent, found Americans ambivalent about abortion. Forty-six percent of the respondents viewed abortion as a constitutional right. Forty-five percent didn’t. To be fair, it’s worth noting that an Associated Press-Ipsos poll published by the Seattle Times earlier this month favored the pro-choice position by a slim margin of 51 percent to 43 percent.

The AP story didn’t break down the numbers. But then, the pro-choice media rarely do. They want the public to continue to believe that America’s support for abortion rights is rock solid. They don’t focus much on underlying statistics that show most Americans support a number of restrictions on abortion.

A breakdown inside the numbers of the Zogby poll reveals that respondents held 16 of 20 pro-life positions surveyed. According to a NewsMax story about the poll, these are some of the numbers: 69 percent support parental notification laws for girls 16 and younger; 59 percent believe abortion ends a human life (only 29 percent disagreed); 86 percent think it should be illegal to have an abortion due to the unborn’s gender; 55 percent would require counseling before an abortion; and 61 percent agree that abortions shouldn’t be permitted when an unborn child’s heart begins to beat.

Also, a 2004 Zogby poll of 1,209 found that young adults (60 percent), African Americans (62 percent), and Hispanics (78 percent) held pro-life positions.

Bottom line? Abortion doesn’t resonate with voters the way it once did. In fact, 59 percent (to 28 percent) of the respondents to the latest Zogby poll said they opposed filibustering a pro-life Supreme Court nominee. Maybe that explains why the usual suspects in the U.S. Senate were unable to gain traction for filibusters against nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito. It’ll be interesting to see how much longer NARAL, Planned Parenthood and Democrats can use the deaths of more than 1 million unborn babies per year to their advantage. They seem to be out of step with America’s burgeoning Hispanic population.

Finally, the pendulum appears to be swinging back, depending on which numbers you prefer to embrace, of course.