Hey Bill, If Pokémon could get pregnant instead of laying eggs, and if two Pokémon in the same gender could have a biological child together( I know it’s impossible but what if.) would the baby’s genetics be screwed up and have complications developing or die shortly after birth? I know that this is a strange question but I’m curious.

Not really, no. Once genetic material is removed from its cell, it doesn’t take into account the gender of the source. That is to say, if you removed DNA from eggs sourced from two genetically different beings, it won’t matter that they’re both organisms capable of producing eggs (as opposed to sperm). The genetic material will simply combine the same way it would if the material came from a sperm and egg. The only difference is that because both sources have the exact same type of sex chromosome, the offspring will always be the same gender as both parents. So for example, if both of the parents had a pair of X chromosomes, then the child will also have a pair of X chromosomes; there is no chance for it to have both an X and a Y.

While mutations are always a possibility (because no biological process is perfect), a child will only have a higher risk of being born with them if:

A. One of the parents is a carrier for a genetic condition anyway.

B. The parents are biologically related.

C. The parent carrying the child was exposed to environmental factors (such as cigarette smoke, high doses of radiation, and so forth).

The first scenario is self-explanatory, so I don’t feel the need to go into detail about that. The second, meanwhile, has a lot to do with the first, as parents who are biologically related also share more genetic material than two parents from completely different families. As a result, they also share markers for … less than desirable traits, including recessive genetic issues. Consequently, combining genetic material from two biological relatives results in those less desirable traits being expressed, which in turn leads to a wide variety of problems in the child.

The third, meanwhile, has less to do with the parents and more to do with the fact that mammalian fetal development is surprisingly a highly delicate thing.

In short, anonymous, no, two pokémon of the same gender would not produce a child with debilitating genetic disorders unless those two pokémon were also biologically related. Or, well, mating in Pripyat, but I highly doubt that to be the case.