Barack Obama is sparring with anti-abortion groups who have accused him of covering up his record in the Illinois Senate on infant protection legislation.

Obama is pro-choice, but he told Pastor Rick Warren on Saturday during a forum at Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., that he is in favor of limits on late-term abortions provided exceptions are made for the mother's health.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee followed that forum with an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network in which he said the National Right to Life Committee was "lying" about his voting record in the Illinois Senate.

The committee says Obama worked in the Illinois Senate to kill legislation "virtually identical" to the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which was intended to extend legal rights to an infant born even after an attempted abortion.

"I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying," Obama said in the interview. "I have said repeatedly that I would have been ... fully in support of the federal bill ... that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born -- even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion."

But he said that was not the bill presented at the state level. Obama said that bill was trying to "undermine" Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, and the Illinois Legislature already had a law in place to ensure life-saving treatment is administered to infants.

"So for people to suggest that I ... (am) somehow in favor of withholding life saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies common sense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it's an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond," he told CBN.

The National Right to Life Committee, however, isn't stepping back. It released a statement Monday saying: "Senator Barack Obama's four-year effort to cover up his full role in killing legislation to protect born-alive survivors of abortions continues to unravel."

Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council Action, also released a statement calling for Obama to apologize to voters.

"Senator Obama's position in the Illinois Senate was to oppose any legislation that would protect such innocent life. Everyone else was clear that the bill addressed infanticide not abortion," he said, accusing Obama of "twisting of the truth."

Perkins claimed the campaign since clarified its position "that it was the senator himself who was actually wrong on the facts."

However, the campaign said it made no such statement. The campaign instead released a statement to CBN decrying the allegations.

"But the recent attacks on Senator Obama that allege he would allow babies born alive to die are outrageous lies. The suggestion that Obama –- the proud father of two little girls –- and others who opposed these bills supported infanticide is deeply offensive and insulting," the campaign said.