In a debate Thursday, Colorado gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez reiterated his opposition to state “personhood” amendments, but he neglected to say he’s still supportive of federal personhood legislation.

This separates Beauprez from the Colorado Republican senatorial candidate, Cory Gardner, who withdrew his support for state personhood amendments in March, but now maintains that “there is no a federal personhood bill,” even though he’s a co-sponsor of it.

“I’m opposed to the personhood amendment,” Beauprez said during Thursday’s debate in Pueblo, as reported by the Denver Post. “I’ll tell you what I’m in favor of. I’m in favor of innocent lives.”

Shortly after Beauprez announced his bid for governor in March, he told Brandon Rittiman, a reporter for Denver’s local NBC affiliate, that he opposed Colorado’s personhood amendments.

Critics responded to the TV interview by reminding media outlets and voters that Beauprez co-sponsored a 2005 federal personhood bill, called the Right to Life Act, which is worded similarly to the Life at Conception Act, the personhood bill co-sponsored by Gardner.

Both bills would expand the definition of a person under the 14th Amendment to include the unborn, defined as beginning at the zygote or fertilized egg stage, and thereby outlawing all abortion and some forms of birth control.

Rittiman asked Beauprez about his support of the Right to Life Act and reported, “Beauprez has certainly supported the concept of personhood in the form of federal legislation. He says his answer to 9NEWS was meant to convey that he has not supported it at the state level.”

In June, Rittiman again asked Beauprez about his personhood stance, and the former congressman was careful to separate the state amendments from the federal personhood bill.

“The personhood amendment, and that’s where we have to draw the line, the personhood amendment might have identified the right issue, but the very wrong solution,” Beauprez told Rittiman.

Beauprez essentially repeated the statement during Thursday’s debate, saying he’s opposed to the state personhood amendment, without acknowledging his backing of federal personhood legislation.

Beauprez is running in a statistical tie against pro-choice Gov. John Hickenlooper. The two have clashed repeatedly on women’s health issues, with Hickenlooper affirming his support of reproductive rights, and Beauprez articulating a firm anti-choice stance.

Hickenlooper, in another debate last week, asked Beauprez if he’d back a program offering low-cost or free contraception for young women.

Beauprez answered that he has a “big problem” using public funds on intrauterine devices (IUDs), which he called an “abortifacient” because they threaten or destroy zygotes. (Leading medical groups define pregnancy as beginning at the point of successful implantation, which means that IUDs prevent pregnancy and therefore are not abortifacients.)

When running for governor in 2006, Beauprez said he’d sign a bill banning abortion, if such legislation were presented to him as governor, and he emphasized his opposition to all abortion, even for the rape of a 16-year-old girl, saying pregnancies resulting from rape are “relatively few” and the child conceived by the rape should not be punished.