A working-class couple with four children live in extreme poverty in a rear building. When the woman becomes pregnant again, she goes to a young doctor and asks him to terminate the pregnancy, as the child would be too much of a burden for her. The doctor refuses to perform the procedure because it is against the law, so she has the abortion herself and dies in the process. The public prosecutor has the man arrested and the four children are left to fend for themselves.

The prosecutor's fiancée, a young teacher, lives in the front building. When she is raped and becomes pregnant in her apartment by the porter's wife's mentally disturbed son, the doctor, deeply affected by the case of the working-class couple, performs an illegal abortion on the teacher and confronts the public prosecutor with the case of his own fiancée. The public prosecutor resigns because he can no longer reconcile his office with his conscience.