COLUMBUS — Backers of the “Heartbeat” bill on Wednesday had their long-awaited chance to make their case before a Senate committee for passage of legislation they say would be the nation’s toughest anti-abortion law.

“The heartbeat settles the question,” said Tim Sheets, senior pastor of The Oasis church in Middletown, told the Health, Human Services and Aging Committee. “If it’s beating, it’s alive.”

The committee will hold a second hearing next week for opponent testimony on House Bill 125, with a vote by the full Senate likely.

Jason Mauk, Senate chief of staff, said Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, “intends to try to move on something before the end of the year.”

Supporters have been urging Senate action since the House passed the bill in June.

The Senate committee saw in person a “witness” from earlier House deliberations, Halley Carolina Glockner, now 9 weeks old.

At an earlier House hearing, members heard Glockner’s heartbeat at nine weeks in the womb via an ultrasound projector.

A heartbeat can be detected as early as five or six weeks, according to experts, even before a woman knows she is pregnant.

Dr. Jack Willke of Cincinnati, a founder and leader of Ohio and national Right to Life groups, also testified. Willke is among those who have broken with Ohio Right to Life over the state group’s decision not to support the bill.

Ohio Right to Life officials have said they fear that passage of the bill could lead to a legal challenge with the unintended consequence of strengthening a woman’s right to an abortion.

Willke told the Senate committee he believes U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, considered a swing vote on abortion, is waiting for a case that could be used to totally or partly overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision permitting abortion.

Other witnesses told the committee that Ohio should not back away from passing a law that could result in a U.S. Supreme Court challenge.

“Many years ago there was a famous play by Samuel Becket, entitled, ‘Waiting for Godot’,” said David Forte, a Cleveland State University law professor. “The point of the play, of course, was that Godot never arrives. Waiting for the sake of waiting never saved anybody.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, backed by NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, has said it will file a legal challenge if the bill becomes law.

Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, said, “It rolls back the clock on women’s health. It won’t stop abortions. It will take them out of the safe, legal, medical environment and put them back into people taking some pretty desperate measures that could endanger their health.”