Professor Theo Boer:

That is a very good question to an ethicist and not a lawyer. When I was still on the committee we did look at cases where we had second thoughts. For example, we had a case where the signature under the advance directive was clearly not the signature of an old man but rather of a middle-aged woman, that is, the patient’s daughter. We went to the doctor and we asked if they were sure the signature was the signature of the patient and the doctor said: "Look here. I was told that it was." So in the end we backed off. Our chairwoman also said, "We are not a criminal investigator." The majority are correct but once you have a law, it is absolutely impossible to put a police officer in every hospital room or bedroom and look at whether there is some silent pressure or some unspoken longing for an inheritance. That is impossible because it would infringe very much on the privacy of the patient-doctor relationship. I think there is no solution.