Holding Steady:
Navigating Uncharted Territories
for Health and Freedom
The human population is, for sure, in uncharted territory as advanced technology takes hold. How is this uncharted human experience of technology impacting our health and our health freedom?
At NHFC, as long-time advocates for health freedom, we are asking:
“How are things going on the personal freedom front?”
“Is our human freedom to make our own health decisions still intact and being protected?”
Navigating this territory is one of the biggest challenges we have faced. But we all know… humans know…to go steady and be wary in unchartered territories, as the chaos of change can present many decisions. And the paths that lead to the most peace and harmony may not be clear cut at first.
Changes in daily life due to technology are happening so fast that it is hard to keep up with the new tech apps and languages that pop up every week. Corporations are using Certified Change Managers just to help with all the transitions and speed of change. In my own personal world, our family has gone from getting up the courage to go to college more than 50 miles away from home and using quarters in a pay phone to call home once a month, to teens jetting off to foreign countries and Facetiming family back home multiple times a day.
Uncharted territory is an expected element in an evolving world. The history of humans and their ways of life, beliefs, customs, locations, and how to get along (or not get along), has always been intense and rich with lessons. Who among us has NEVER been in uncharted territory?
In the 1990’s, when state governments were attempting to criminalize health care practitioners who were providing wholistic approaches to health instead of using the more conventional drug-based approach, NHFC/NHFA founders were part of the Minnesota Natural Health Coalition and Legal Reform Project that passed the historic Minnesota 146A statute, protecting all complementary and alternative health care practitioners from criminal charges of practicing medicine without a license. And when, in 2000, states began to make laws to take away human rights of citizens during what they would call “declared emergencies,” Minnesota leaders took action and passed a Right to Refuse law to be protective during such declared emergencies.
NHFC was founded in 2000, and in 2003 NHFC called forth health freedom leaders from around the country to come together to discuss health freedom overall, including how to protect our practitioners, products, information sources, and our personal health freedoms. This gathering which ended up being held every year or two eventually led to the founding of the US Health Freedom Congress, where leading health freedom organizations come together in a circle of trust to pass resolutions that reflected visions for the future. As the tidal wave of changes have continued to happen in these past 25 years, the resolutions coming forth out of the US Health Freedom Congress have become more crucial and more technically based, addressing all that is evolving.
In 2020, government and corporate mandates on personal freedoms began to be the front and center concern in the health freedom movement. NHFA along with advocates from California, Vermont, and Massachusetts, launched the Right to Refuse project and its website, providing support and information to groups around the country working to protect the right of citizens to make their own health decisions and protect their bodily autonomy. The Right to Refuse website reports legislation introduced that is protective of citizen freedoms and lists all the successful bills that have passed. Thus far, forty-nine states across the nation have filed over 1,380 bills that would protect bodily autonomy. Twenty-nine states have passed those bills into law, with a total of 81 new laws and 8 resolutions passed. Congratulations to all those citizen activists.
So how are we doing?
Regarding health, we know now that life expectancy in the U.S. has decreased, not increased. And regarding health freedom, we are experiencing more freedom power struggles, attempted mandates, and infringements on personal freedoms. You would think it would be the opposite, that our health would be improving, and freedom would be a given, with all this advanced technology. But governments are not moving fast enough to protect the people. Technology, in the hands of merging interests of corporations and governments, is potentially jeopardizing the health of the people.
As a country we have allowed medical products including vaccines to be on the market without liability or adequate recourse when the products cause harm. We have allowed toxins in public water sources and the air that we breathe. We have promoted dependency on communication devices yet attempted to censor free speech. We are allowing the development and distribution of products that could change the human genome. We are allowing the saturation of the entire airspace with microwave radiation and Wi-Fi frequencies that cause harm to health. We are even allowing debris to build up in space around planet Earth. According to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs as of September 2024 there are 12,252 satellite objects circling the earth, with more coming each month, and concerns about congestion of the sky are rising.
What to do? What to do?
Hold steady as she goes. Breathe. Contemplate. Think globally, act locally. Gather together with others to discuss your top priorities. Look into the chaos and envision and share what you want the future to look like. Read the resolutions of the US Health Freedom Congress to be inspired. Read the new Right to Refuse freedom laws being passed. Write and pass more resolutions. Take one little corner of your world and do one right thing. And if it is not clear what that is, reach out and dialogue with others until answers come.
We CAN create our future. We have to be WILLING to create our future. We need to speak up on our own behalf as a people. We can only do this together.
Can we flourish in a technological world? One wonders. I posit that the first step is to recognize and protect the innate essence of being human. Share our human stories with each other and band together. If technology can assist, great. But not to let it replace our humanness with all its struggles and love for each other, or to jeopardize a healthy, happy, and peaceful human experience.
Yours in Health & Freedom,
