SUPREME COURT Parents: Keep baby on support

The baby is not expected to awake from a vegetative state.
AKRON (AP) -- An attorney for the parents of a comatose 7-month-old boy will seek a stay from the Ohio Supreme Court to keep the baby on life support.
An appeals court upheld a lower-court ruling Wednesday that Aiden Stein could be removed from life support despite objections from his parents.
Attorney Edward Markovich said he will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court today. He believes the court should take the case because state law is unclear on the termination of a minor's life without parental permission.
Matthew Stein is suspected of injuring his son while alone with him March 15 at their Mansfield apartment, police said. Stein is under investigation but has not been charged and has denied harming or shaking Aiden.
The hospital where the baby has been treated fears that Stein, 21, will try to duck a murder charge by keeping Aiden on life support.
Appealed to court
Stein and Aiden's 21-year-old mother, Arica Heimlich, had asked the 9th Ohio District Court of Appeals to overturn an April ruling by Summit County Probate Judge Bill Spicer.
Judge Spicer appointed attorney Ellen Kaforey as guardian at the request of Akron Children's Hospital and she has said she would withdraw Aiden's life support, as doctors have suggested.
Clair Dickinson, an attorney representing the guardian, said Wednesday that the parents had been notified that Aiden would be removed from life support no earlier than noon Friday, giving them time for an appeal to the Supreme Court.
"This is a very sad situation for everybody concerned," Dickinson said. "We just want to allow the baby to die with dignity."
Aiden, born Oct. 27, has been hospitalized for almost three months at Akron Children's Hospital with severe brain damage. He is blind, deaf and unaware of his surroundings.
Dickinson said the baby's condition has not changed.
"He is on a ventilator. He is still in a persistent vegetative state and he will be until he dies," Dickinson said.
Parental rights issue
The parents challenged whether a guardian should have been appointed because the status of their parental rights had not been decided by the Richland County Juvenile Court.
In the 3-0 ruling, Judge William Batchelder wrote that the parents should have challenged the appointment of a guardian before the hearing began in probate court. Judge Batchelder noted that they consented to a guardian for limited medical purposes.
The parents also challenged the probate judge's ruling that removing Aiden from life support is in his best interest. The appeals court ruled the parents failed to make an argument to support their belief.
"I don't think that's the parents' burden. I think it's the state's burden to prove he's better off dead," Markovich said.