I Can’t I Can’t tells the tale of a young Irish Catholic bride who is devastated when her pregnant mother miscarries and dies on her wedding day. The young woman (Tessa Wyatt), one of seven children, blames her father’s lust for the death. When her own wedding night arrives she is terrified and refuses to consummate the marriage with her husband (Dennis Waterman). Her parish priest forbids her to accept her doctor’s suggestion that she should use contraception and she is driven to desperate measures.