I recognize that suicide is not particularly related to the operating on oneself. I was using it as proof that sometimes avoiding death is not a no brainer, as is suggested above.

Edit to clarify: There exist situations which would drive one actively toward death, I could understand a refusal to do surgery on oneself being a passive decision leading toward death.

Well the point is it’s a completely different sort of phenomenon. In a normal human (and normal animal) the will to survive is extremely strong.

The situations you allude to are almost exclusively mental situations. Having to operate on oneself, while mentally taxing, is a fundamentally physical dilemma. It produces fear and stress, but not existential ennui.

A good point. I have no contest, except for that I would have described the idea of operating on myself with the same sort of feeling as the other situations.

After having read the OP and the other cases people have linked, I no longer feel that way.

Thanks for the great conversation, it's caused me to think quite a bit!