Petitions on human non-human hybrids

I have just got an email originating from a leading Christian bioethicist relating to petitions responding to the new proposed legislation that would permit scientists to create ‘true hybrids’ ie embryos that would have a human parent and a nonhuman parent.

Although these embryos - like human embryos - would have to be destroyed at 14 days I really find it hard to understand what kind of creatures we would have made and how the law and ethics should think of something that is, say, a half human half pig embryo

As the author of the email says:

I believe that we are in danger of following Dr Moreau in the novel by HG Wells, who says of his animal-human creations, ‘I went on with this research just the way it led me… I have never troubled about the ethics of the matter.’

The petitions can be signed at

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to prevent medical researchers from creating human animal hybrid embryos"

and

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ban experiments involving the creation of hybrid human/animal embryos"