George West Barrett

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) -- Bishop George West Barrett, who ordained women into the priesthood before the Episcopal church formally allowed such action, died Sunday. He was 92.

Barrett, who had written to parishioners and friends saying he was ready to face death, died following his decision to remove himself from dialysis.

The priest, who arrived in Santa Barbara in 1972 was temporarily banned from the Episcopal ministry after his ordination in 1975 of four women, actions he defended as having "solid theological support."

An outspoken advocate of abortion rights, he served as an executive with Planned Parenthood of Santa Barbara from 1972 to 1977.

"Compulsory pregnancy is obscene and mandatory motherhood a badge of slavery,'" he wrote in a column published in the Santa Barbara News-Press in 1989.

Barrett, who grew up in Pasadena, was ordained a priest in 1934 after receiving bachelor's and master's degrees from the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass. He received doctorates from Occidental College in Los Angeles and The General Theological Seminary in New York.