Lansing, MI (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-life groups in Michigan are calling on pro-life advocates there to contact their members of the state legislature and urge support for a discharge petition. The special legislative motion is needed because a House committee refuses to vote on a partial-birth abortion ban the Senate already approved.

The ban received approval from the Michigan Senate on a bipartisan 24 to 13 vote.

When Senate Bill 776 got to the House, Speaker of the House Andy Dillon assigned it to the House Judiciary Committee, where he knew its chairman, Rep. Paul Condino, would block a vote on it.

However, pro-life members of the House of Representatives aren't giving up.

On Wednesday, pro-life representatives plan a vote on a discharge motion that would take the partial-birth abortion ban out of the committee and place it on the House floor for a debate and vote.

Ed Rivet, the legislative director of Right to Life of Michigan, told LifeNews.com his group strongly supports the effort.

"We're asking pro-life citizens across Michigan to contact their state representative in Lansing to ask him or her to move the partial birth abortion bill by whatever vote is necessary," he said.

"The time to act is now. A floor vote to move the bill is set for Wednesday, April 23," Rivet added.

Although Congress approved, and the Supreme Court upheld, a national partial-birth abortion ban, state legislatures are looking to approve bans on the state level to allow state and local officials to assist in enforcing it.

The Michigan partial-birth abortion ban calls the procedure "gruesome and inhumane" and says its "disturbing similarity to the killing of a newborn infant promotes a complete disregard for infant human life that can only be countered by a prohibition."

ACTION: Contact your state legislator by going to http://www.rtl.org/html/legislation/find.html and urging a vote for the discharge petition on the partial-birth abortion ban.