What's the difference between a paternity test and a maternity test? Will there be a "first case of paternity test fooled by chimerism" for an asian/ a person under 22/ a person with blonde hair?
Women tend to have reliable first-hand information as to whether they gave birth to a particular child, so maternity tests occur in different social and legal contexts and have different consequences. (Admittedly giving birth to a given child is not the same as being its genetic mother, but in most cases the distinction is not at issue.)
A maternity test tells you who the genetic mother is. A paternity test tells you who the genetic father is.
The legal system sees genetic forensic evidence as very strong. This result shows that we need to be a bit more careful about the samples we used for genetic testing - although this means police procedures for extracting samples are going to get a lot more complicated than a simple cheek swab.
> A maternity test tells you who the genetic mother is. A paternity test tells you who the genetic father is.
Which is, from the point of view of the test, exactly the same thing. However, it's obvious that "mater semper certa est" ("the mother is always certain"). That is, almost always, apparently...
