We have now reviewed Provisions 1 through 8 of the 2025 ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses. Today, we turn to Provision 9, which highlights the nurse’s and nursing organizations’ responsibility to promote social justice, eliminate health inequities, and support human flourishing. This provision expands nursing’s role beyond direct patient care to advocacy, allyship, and leadership in society.

9.1 Assertion of Nursing Values

Professional nursing organizations are called to exemplify and uphold the values of nursing, affirming the dignity, worth, and rights of all people. Nurses collectively speak out to shape healthcare rooted in humanistic and social justice principles. This includes condemning dehumanization, amplifying marginalized voices, and affirming a duty that extends beyond individual careers to societal well-being. When nursing organizations act in solidarity, they form a powerful force for advancing justice and health.

9.2 Commitment to Society

Nursing’s covenant with society is built on trust.  Society grants nursing authority to care for the health of its members, and in turn nurses must uphold that trust through ethical, compassionate practice. Threats such as corporatization, profit-driven healthcare, and overreliance on technology can undermine this covenant by prioritizing transactions over relationships. To protect this bond, nursing education should cultivate civic engagement, advocacy, and allyship. Nurses are called to uphold the public’s trust by actively addressing unjust systems that undermine health and justice.

9.3 Advancing the Nursing Vision of a Good and Healthy Society

Nursing envisions a society where dignity, justice, and compassion prevail. Nurses, individually and collectively, work toward sustainable changes that reflect the profession’s virtues and values. Professional organizations play a central role in dismantling structural barriers and aligning missions with nursing’s values. This includes addressing issues such as profit-driven healthcare, gun violence, misinformation, discrimination, climate change, food insecurity, and environmental justice. By advancing this vision, nursing helps create a society where all can coexist and flourish.

9.4 Challenges of Structural Oppressions: Racism and Intersectionality

To advocate for justice, nursing must confront its own history of racism and commit to antiracism, equity, and inclusion. This involves acknowledging harms, dismantling structural racism, and ensuring leadership and organizational structures reflect diverse voices. Nurses must condemn all forms of oppression and understand how interconnected systems of discrimination shape health outcomes. Intersectionality highlights the cumulative effects of overlapping inequities, requiring inclusive and equity-focused approaches. Nursing must center antiracism as a core value, recognizing racism, not race, as the driving force behind health inequities.

9.5 National Policies, Programs, and Legislation

Nurses and nursing organizations must actively engage in the political process to influence policies and legislation that affect health and social determinants of well-being. This includes informed voting, civic engagement, running for office, legislative advocacy, and when necessary, activism and protest. Nurses are obligated to speak against policies that undermine equity and health, and to build broad coalitions to advance justice. Collective action strengthens the nursing voice and mitigates risks, ensuring nursing’s influence on policy and societal transformation.

Provision 9 underscores that nursing is not only a clinical practice but also a social and moral force. By uniting around values, engaging with society, advancing visions of justice, and confronting systemic oppression, nursing fulfills its ethical duty to promote human flourishing. In our next ethics post, we will review Provision 10, which addresses the responsibility of nurses to collaborate with others in advancing the profession and shaping policy at every level.

Please share your reflections on Provision 9 in the comments.  How do you see nurses and professional organizations promoting justice, equity, and human flourishing in today’s healthcare environment?