Pressure group Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON) has expressed its disappointment at the vote in the House of Lords on Tuesday against a ban on the creation of animal-human hybrids for the purposes of medical research.

The Bill, now passing through the Commons, will allow scientists to create "cytoplasmic" embryos by inserting human cells into an animal egg, and "true" hybrids by mixing human sperm with an animal egg or vice versa.

As peers voted inside inside the House of Lords, hundreds of Christians rallied outside Parliament to express their opposition to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill on the basis that hybrid embryos go against God's intention behind His creation.

Andrea Minichiello Williams said: "This legislation, which holds many other worrying provisions besides hybrids, is attacking the very core of who we are as a society, what we value as human beings, how we view the unique dignity of humanity and the lengths we are prepared to go to in perverting nature for our own selfish and often misguided desires.

"If the nation is still capable of being shocked, then this Bill - if its contents were more widely known and understood - would certainly do just that."

Ms Williams called on the church to speak up on the risks that the Bill's provisions pose.

"It is the church's responsibility to speak up for God's intention for His creation, and in the absence of a wider understanding of the Bill it falls to the church to speak on behalf the nation, to act as lookouts in the watch tower warning of the approaching dangers," she said.

Today, the Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) gave the go ahead to scientists at King's College London and the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to create the cytoplasmic hybrids.