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The Bar in every state, the AMA, the APA, and many other bodies enforce ethical standards.

They enforce rules of that association. Which may or may not be based on ethical standards.

They call them ethical standards, and if you’re being reduced to a purely semantic argument, why not just pack it in?

That's a pretty important semantic distinction -- are you enforcing ethical standards (and I don't think anyone can force somebody to be a good person), or are you enforcing laws or rules?

If the same association, in the fifties, excluded black members, would you say that the standards they were enforcing at the time were ethical?

Unless you’re offering a similarly objectionable issue with current ethical standards, you’re playing word games instead of a real argument.

Which is obnoxious.

Are you making the argument that ethical progress is not possible?

Not really. I am arguing that what can be enforced, either by state or by an organization, are laws for the former and rules/bylaws/etc for the latter. Which may or may not be ethical.

Maybe I _am_ splitting it a bit too finely, but I just don't see ethical norms (which do change over time) as something being enforceable.

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