Blog post by: Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen, MA & MFA Visual Artist.
The blog post expresses the author's personal views.

Anyone searching for plant-based foods in a supermarket must first pass aisle after aisle of dead animals or animal-derived products in every form: skinned bodies, severed limbs, pureed organs, butchered and ground muscle, filled intestines, animal cells that could become birds, and nutritional secretions in liquid and solid forms. And there, among the trays of liver pâté and salami slices, appears a plant-based pâté. It feels strange to reach into the refrigerated case, close to body parts that once belonged to living beings with their own personalities and the capacity to enjoy life. A mix of horror at the thought of their lives and deaths, and a sense of solidarity, empathy, and injustice.

Since switching to a plant-based diet over four years ago, seeing the pieces of dead animals in stores has pained me. After learning about their breeding and deaths, I’ve been shaken by Danes’ apparent indifference to the social order that permits this massive industrial slaughter of farm animals. Animals or animal products on the menu are considered utterly natural in Denmark. Admittedly, before my switch, I ate meat and knew how it was produced—but worried about other societal issues.

In my quest to understand the mindset behind this insane food system, I wrote a book: Danish Speciesism. Danish Speciesism.

Speciesism—discrimination against species

Speciesism is a concept in animal ethics introduced by Australian philosopher Peter Singer in his 1975 book Animal Liberation. It includes a full chapter on the historical origins and current prevalence of speciesism.

Singer argues speciesism should be understood like racism and sexism: structural hierarchies where one party dismisses another's interests, based on race or gender. In speciesism, humans dismiss other species’ interests to live lives aligned with their evolutionary needs and opportunities. Industrially farmed animals like cows, pigs, and chickens are confined, separated from their offspring, eggs, or milk, cannot choose their mates, and are killed long before their natural lifespan. This is not in the animals’ interest. Animals are bred according to human interests—to extract specific animal products. Speciesism shows in our ranking of animals—our pets hold privileges and access to our homes, while cows, pigs, and chickens as livestock are seen as lower species, even though pigs are smarter than dogs and cats.

Speciesism is the mindset that legitimizes this mistreatment of farmed animals and ignores their fundamental interests. From what stance can we challenge speciesism? To me, it must be a moral stance on whether it is right to treat sentient, living beings as industrial farming does. Fundamentally, it demands recognizing and respecting another living being as an individual and body in its own right—whether a cow, pig, or chicken. Especially beings who never chose to be domesticated or threaten us. They are innocent victims of human speciesism, just as enslaved people or women have been victims of male domination.

What is speciesism?

Discrimination based on species. For example, why do we love dogs but eat pigs?
A concept in ethics and philosophy introduced by philosopher Peter Singer.
Many philosophers believe speciesism is morally wrong. We should recognize all species—not just humans.
Speciesism underlies how we treat animals today: it’s a reason we subject some species to suffering, pain, and death, just to eat their bodies.

But where does this idea come from—that humans have the right to dominate, manipulate, and kill non-human species like cows, pigs, and chickens?

Peter Singer traces Western speciesism’s origin to Christianity’s creation story, where God creates the world and grants humans divine rights to rule over and eat animals. Christianity designates humans as a special species to dominate others. Speciesism’s origin is therefore mythological, deeply woven into stories of humans as the pinnacle of creation.

Speciesism is thus not new, and it should be noted that cultures beyond Christianity also hold forms of speciesism.

But in Denmark, speciesism has intensified to the extreme: millions of animals die annually in Danish slaughterhouses. From an animal rights perspective, Denmark is a nation of death and destruction. How can so many simply accept this as normal? I believe more is at play than just aggressive marketing from the lobby Landbrug & Fødevarer or beliefs that meat is healthy or essential for flavor and texture. To me, “Danish speciesism” makes sense as a distinctive form because agriculture has held a special status since the dawn of the welfare state.

Denmark was an agricultural country, where exporting farm products economically supported the welfare state. From the start, Danes understood themselves as breeders and killers of animals. This was legitimated by our Christian cultural values and was profitable. Profit motivates strange behaviors, even wrong ones. Over time, we developed cultural eating habits with national dishes like meatballs with brown sauce and potatoes, or roast pork and duck at Christmas.

Today’s heavily indebted agriculture plays a minor economic role, causes oxygen depletion in our seas, pollutes drinking water—and worst of all: abuses and kills animals, making it hard to face.

But speciesism is written into Danish animal protection law, so it must be right? At least it’s still legal. Or is it?

Just because it's normal doesn’t mean it’s right.

People once believed races differed, making it natural to enslave Africans. Today we reject that (although racism hasn't disappeared). Similarly, many think it’s fully legitimate to confine and kill animals when it suits us.

My book challenges this mindset by revealing speciesism’s consequences for animals and why we must abolish animal food production. Being speciesist is a huge privilege—it gives easy access to flavor, protein, and fat. Yes, we have the power as a species. But just because we have power, do we have the right? People once believed parents could beat their children. That obvious power became right. Corporal punishment was only banned in 1997. Today we see it as wrong. Our moral standards change.

I believe and hope society will one day shift its view of farm animals from outdated morals to new ones recognizing animals as sentient, feeling individuals worthy of respect. From that moral standpoint, buying meat or animal products clearly involves violence, manipulation, and premature death of beings who would always prefer to live according to their evolutionary needs.

My book on Danish speciesism concludes with two chapters on the moral transformation individuals can undergo, leading to a society where animal farming is abolished, and what wild nature we can regain by ending intensive farming for livestock. The book is fundamentally a rallying cry for a new Denmark, based on analysis of speciesism and its horrific consequences for farm animals.