Again, what about species that don't reproduce themselves, but spawn from a single "factory"?
That factory may be nothing like them. It could be a mechanical factory producing automatons (with human-level thought if you need that criteria), or a universally-unique "mother" creature, or even a non-sentient spawning pool where they spontaneously form every now and then.
If there are entire planets populated by such entities, and they have governed over many things for as much time as we have occupied our Earth, would you still classify them as not-life in your dealings with them?
That would be like not considering Taiwan a country. (Sorry, couldn't resist injecting contemporary political commentary.)
