The Conservatives retracted a news release issued Friday with a headline reading: "Paul Martin Supports Child Pornography?" and later changed it to "How Tough is Paul Martin on Child Pornography?"

The release which states, "Martin says he's against child pornography, but his voting record proves otherwise", was sent out to media at 15:40 EDT, and recalled an hour later.

Liberal Leader Paul Martin responded to the release saying, "This is a personal attack. I'm a father and a husband. This crossed the line and he should apologize."

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper admitted the language of the headline may have been somewhat strong, but he didn't backtrack on his message.

"What's in bad taste is the Liberal party's record on child pornography," Harper told reporters. "I will attack them on it and if they want to fight the rest of the election on it, good luck to them."

Media backlash against the headline pushed the Conservatives to change the headline, party spokesperson, Rhonda Walker told CBC.ca but the body of the release remained the same.

Another Conservative news release titled, "The NDP Caucus Supports Child Pornography?", accuses 11 Caucus members of voting against prohibiting the creation or use of child pornography.

"The NDP does not support child pornography. And it is hard to imagine a worse day to play politics with this issue," read a party statement.

"It's ridiculous," Layton said. "I ask everyone to remain calm. We should work together to protect children in this country, and everywhere. When you have something this horrific and tragic, people need to pull together. Political parties need to pull together."

Hours earlier NDP Leader Jack Layton had suggested he could work with a Conservative minority government.

These attacks follow a public outcry on Thursday over the issue of child porn in Canada. A wave of disgust was triggered by the news that the killer of ten year-old Toronto girl Holly Jones had admitted his child sex fantasies had been fuelled by the regular consumption of internet child porn.

"This is an important issue that needs to be treated seriously by Parliament," added Walker.