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So if you need the assistance of a mechanical ventilator are you no longer human since you can't breathe on your own? Why would taking your first breath suddenly transform you from nonhuman to human?

Further, is it ok for a hospital to stop attempting to save people once they flatline? After all, if we measure humanity according to this metric, then they ceased to he a human once they could no longer breathe.

the question was when does life start, not what constitutes being considered alive / a human being in general.

if you subsequently stop breathing, after your life has started, that's a different situation with different rules.

This has the merit of being pretty clear, in a way I like it, but then abortion can happen up until the day of the birth?
In principle, that's legal in much of the developed world (with various restrictions in place). But it simply never happens, as there's no practical way to abort a pregnancy that close to term without severely harming the mother (which would be criminal). Abortions in the 3rd trimester are a tiny % of the total (typically < 1%), and I can't find any reliable account of one occurring after 28 weeks or so. Seems to me the sensible cut off for when abortion becomes criminal is the point at which it simply can't be done safely. See https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/fact-sheet/abortion...